The Significant Influence of Hoarseness Levels in Connected Speech on the Voice-Related Disability Evaluated Using Voice Handicap Index-10

Kiyohito Hosokawa; Toshihiko Iwahashi; Mio Iwahashi; Shinobu Iwaki; Chieri Kato; Misao Yoshida; Daichi Yoshida; Itsuki Kitayama; Masanori Umatani; Naoki Matsushiro; Makoto Ogawa; Hidenori Inohara

doi:10.1016/j.jvoice.2020.11.024

The Significant Influence of Hoarseness Levels in Connected Speech on the Voice-Related Disability Evaluated Using Voice Handicap Index-10

J Voice. 2023 Mar;37(2):290.e7-290.e16. doi: 10.1016/j.jvoice.2020.11.024. Epub 2020 Dec 26.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita-city, Japan; Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Japan Community Health care Organization (JCHO) Osaka Hospital, Osaka-city, Osaka, Japan; Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Osaka Police Hospital, Osaka-city, Osaka, Japan. Electronic address: khosokawa@wg8.so-net.ne.jp.
² Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita-city, Japan.
³ Nimura ENT Voice Clinic, Osaka-city, Osaka, Japan.
⁴ Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe-city, Hyogo, Japan.
⁵ Department of Rehabilitation, Nishinomiya Kaisei Hospital, Nishinomiya-city, Hyogo, Japan.
⁶ Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Japan Community Health care Organization (JCHO) Osaka Hospital, Osaka-city, Osaka, Japan.
⁷ Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita-city, Japan; Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Japan Community Health care Organization (JCHO) Osaka Hospital, Osaka-city, Osaka, Japan.
⁸ Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Osaka Police Hospital, Osaka-city, Osaka, Japan.

PMID: 33376022
DOI: 10.1016/j.jvoice.2020.11.024

Abstract

Objectives: This retrospective study examines the influence of voice quality in connected speech (CS) and sustained vowels (SV) on the voice-related disability in patients' daily living documented by Voice Handicap Index-10 (VHI-10).

Methods: A total of 500 voice recordings of CS and SV samples from 338 patients with voice disturbances were included, along with the patients' age, diagnoses, maximum phonation time, and VHI-10. Dataset-1 comprised of 338 untreated patients, whereas Dataset-2 included 162 patients before and after phonosurgeries. As a preliminary study, the concurrent and diagnostic validities based on auditory-perceptual judgments were examined for cepstral peak prominence (CPP) and CPP smoothed (CPPS) for CS and SV tasks. Next, simple correlations and multivariate regression analyses (MRA) were performed to identify which of the acoustic measures for the CS or SV tasks significantly influenced the total score or improvement of VHI-10.

Results: The preliminary study confirmed high correlations with hoarseness levels as well as the excellent diagnostic accuracy of CPP and CPPS for both CS and SV tasks. In Dataset-1, the simple correlations and MRA results showed that cepstral measures in both tasks demonstrated moderate correlations with, and significant contribution to the total score of VHI-10, respectively. However, in Dataset-2, the changes of cepstral measures, as well as the median pitch after phonosurgeries in the CS tasks only, showed significant contributions to the improvement of VHI-10.

Conclusion: The study demonstrated that the hoarseness levels in both the CS and SV tasks equivalently influenced the VHI-10 scores, and that the post-surgical change of voice quality only in the CS tasks influenced the improvement of voice-related disability in daily living.

Keywords: Acoustic measurement; Cepstral peak prominence; Speech analysis; Voice Handicap Index; Voice-related disability.

MeSH terms

Dysphonia* / diagnosis
Hoarseness
Humans
Retrospective Studies
Speech Acoustics
Speech*