title: Interobserver perceptual analysis of smokers voice.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate variations in the voice by three experienced speech-language therapists. Forty-eight men and nine women from the Associação dos Alcoólicos Anônimos, Santos were studied. Their ages were from 28 to 81 years, with median of 49 years and everyone was a smoker for 60 to 720 months. Most of them used more than 20 cigarettes a day and all of them had stopped alcohol use for 1 to 25 months. The perceptual analysis of the voices was performed by means of the GRBAS scale. The voice sample consisted of a sustained vowel /a/ at a comfortable pitch and loudness level. The three judges were blinded to the opinion of their colleagues and a kappa test was applied. For roughness, the concordance rates were 59.6% for observers 1 and 2 (kappa = 0.234); 47.4% for 1 and 3 (kappa = 0.047) and 52.6% (kappa = 0.016) for 2 and 3. For breathiness, the concordance rates were 80.7% for observers 1 and 2 (kappa = 0.191); 57.9% for 1 and 3 (kappa = 0.147) and 57.9% (kappa = 0.156) for 2 and 3. With regard to asthenic quality, there was concordance of 100% for observers 1 and 2, so kappa could not be applied; the concordance rate was 96.5% for 1 and 3 and for 2 and 3. The evaluation for strained voice revealed concordance rates of 71.9% for observers 1 and 2 (kappa = -0.017); 59.6% for 1 and 3 (kappa = 0.095) and 70.2% (kappa = 0.039) for 2 and 3. The disagreement among the observers was worst for pathological rather than normal voices; when disagreement was present among experienced judges, it was of only one point in the scale used.
authors.affiliation: Faculdade de Ciências da Saúde, Universidade Metropolitana de Santos, Santos, Brazil. dedivitis.hns@uol.com.br
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Dedivitis
authors.forename: A P B
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Barros
authors.forename: D S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Queija
authors.forename: J C M
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Alexandre
authors.forename: W T M
authors.initials: WT
authors.lastname: Rezende
authors.forename: V R
authors.initials: VR
authors.lastname: Corazza
authors.forename: V F C
authors.initials: VF
authors.lastname: Silva
authors.forename: I N
authors.initials: IN
authors.lastname: Nishimoto
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000437:Alcoholism; D001307:Auditory Perception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015588:Observer Variation; D012907:Smoking; D013068:Speech Production Measurement / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014833:Voice Quality