Is perceived dysphonia related to perceived healthiness?
Literature has shown that voice-disordered persons are at higher risk for negative attitudes on several personality and physical appearance traits than vocally normal persons. This study investigated general perceptions of health in subjects with various degrees of dysphonia. Recordings from 100 normophonic and dysphonic subjects were auditorily rated on dysphonia severity by five experienced clinicians and on degree of healthiness/unhealthiness by seven unexperienced listeners. Results revealed strong correlation between auditory ratings of dysphonia severity and unhealthiness severity. Dysphonic subjects are rated significantly unhealthier than normophonic subjects, and the receiver-operating characteristics curve showed that even slight dysphonia induces negative attributions of unhealthiness. This study provides additional evidence for the negative attitudes with which dysphonic speakers are confronted, especially in terms of health.
a Sint-Jan General Hospital, Otorhinolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery, Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology , Bruges , Belgium.|b University College Ghent, Faculty of Health Care, Speech-Language Therapy and Audiology , Ghent , Belgium.|c Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Antwerp , Antwerp , Belgium.
Youri
Y
Maryn
d Independent speech-language therapist , Belgium.
Kim
K
Debo
D000162:Acoustics; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D055154:Dysphonia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015588:Observer Variation; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012372:ROC Curve; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013067:Speech Perception; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D013997:Time Factors; D014833:Voice Quality; D055815:Young Adult
Attitudes; auditory ratings; dysphonia; healthiness; unhealthiness