Epidemiology Of Voice Disorders Among Government School Teachers - An Analytical Cross-Sectional Study from Kancheepuram District

Gowthaman Sankar; Vijayakrishnan Ganesan; Raja Vel Shantharam; Kaveri  Palanisamy; Indraja Katam

doi:10.55489/njcm.131220222574

Authors

Gowthaman Sankar SRM Medical College Hospital and Research Centre, Tamil Nadu, India https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1754-4843
Vijayakrishnan Ganesan SRM Medical College Hospital and Research Centre, Tamil Nadu, India https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8500-645X
Raja Vel Shantharam Sri Lalithambigai Medical College and Hospital, Chennai, India https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5327-0651
Kaveri Palanisamy SRM Medical College Hospital and Research Centre, Tamil Nadu, India https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8640-3473
Indraja Katam Sri Muthukumaran Medical College and Research Institute, Kancheepuram, India https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4192-5280

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.55489/njcm.131220222574

Keywords:

School teachers, Voice disorders, Prevalence, Dysphonia, Risk factors.

Abstract

Background: Voice disorders cause undesirable effects on school teachers such as reducing their quality of life, decrease in work performance affecting the quality of education, job absenteeism, and reduced social activities as well.

Methodology: Voice disorder among teachers was assessed through the “Voice handicap Index”, which was developed by Jacobson et al in 1997 to self-assess the severity of voice disorder in dysphonia patients

Results: The overall prevalence of voice disorder among government school teachers was found to be 46.5% with a 95% confidence interval from 41.5% to 51.5%. Using Backward Wald, the binary logistic regression analysis showed that female teachers (AOR 1.6, p<0.01*), teaching experience less than 10 years (AOR 2.4, p<0.01*), and teaching hours more than 21 hours per week (AOR 6.7, p<0.01*) had a significant association with voice disorders.

Conclusion: The prevalence of voice disorder was found to be high since teachers are professional voice users. The study also recommends that teachers must receive the required health education on the ergonomic risk factors that they will come into contact with in their daily lives as part of their jobs.

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