ABSTRACT
Purpose:
to associate vocal symptoms and their possible self-reported causes, which were referred by teachers from public schools in the city of João Pessoa, PB state.
Methods:
121 teachers from four primary and secondary public schools responded to the Teacher Vocal Production Condition self-perception questionnaire. In this questionnaire, personal data (age, gender, marital status, education); functional status (workload and teaching time) and vocal aspects, mainly related to symptoms and causes, were analyzed. Data analysis was performed using the chi-square association test.
Results:
the most reported vocal symptoms were hoarseness, voice failure, deep voice, weak voice and breathlessness. The most cited reasons were extensive use of voice, stress, allergies and noise exposure. It was found that, in the opinion of teachers, hoarseness is associated with intensive use of voice and respiratory infection; voice loss is associated to the intensive use of voice; breathlessness is associated with allergy; voice failure is associated with the intensive use of voice; and weak voice is associated with respiratory infection, exposure to noise and the intensive use of the voice.
Conclusion:
therefore, this study data indicate that teachers participating in this survey perceive that both external factors (exposure to noise) and aspects related to health and voice (allergies, respiratory infections and the intensive use of voice) interfere in vocal production.
Keywords:
Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences; Voice; Faculty; Epidemiology; Symptoms; Causality
