Associated factors to dysphonia in teachers who work in public school in São Paulo city

Abstract

Teachers constitute the professional category which is the most predisposed to vocal disorders, due to the occupation's intense vocal demand and to unfavorable work environments. Since these professionals depend essentially on their voices to teach, the presence of dysphonia may jeopardize their careers. Aim: To identify factors associated to the presence of dysphonia in teachers of the São Paulo city public school system. Methods: It is a matched case-control study paired by school (2 controls/case). The cases will be teachers seeking the Hospital do Servidor Público Municipal with vocal disorder complaints. They must present vocal quality deviations and/or vocal fold lesion or altered larynx after speech pathology and ENT medical evaluations. The control group will be teachers working at the same school of the case. The subjects in the control group must not present disorders in either speech pathology or ENT medical evaluations. The sample size will be of 165 cases and 330 controls. It was defined assuming OR=2.0, maximum expected frequency of exposure for the controls of 60%, alpha=5% and power=80%. Both groups will complete the following questionnaires: Voz do Professor, Vocal Handicap Index (VHI), Índice de Capacidade para o Trabalho (ICT), Escala de Estresse no Trabalho (EET), Job Stress Scale (JSC) and the brief-WHOQOL. The analysis will be done using chi-squared test and univariate and multiple Logistic Regression models. (AU)