Prevalence and Voice Characteristics in an Indian Treatmentseeking Population for Voice Disorders

Objective: The purpose of this study was to describe the characteristics of a treatment-seeking population visiting the voice clinic of the Speech and Hearing department in a tertiary care hospital. Study design: Retrospective study. Methods: The study included patient’s data who visited the voice clinic from January 2015 to January 2020. The retrospective data related to laryngeal pathology, age, gender, occupation, overall grade (G score of GRBAS), maximum phonation duration, S/Z ratio, and acoustic parameters (F0, jitter, shimmer, noise-to-harmonic ratio) were tabulated and analyzed. Results: The study results were analyzed and reported from 524 patient records. The frequency of organic/structural vocal pathology was observed to be higher (n = 468; 89.3%) than functional/nonstructural pathologies (n = 38; 7.3%). Vocal nodules (28.1%), vocal fold paralysis/ paresis (15.5%), vocal fold edema (13.7%), sulcus vocalis (7.3%), and vocal polyps (6.1%) were the most common (those occurred in more than 5% of the patients) diagnosis observed for the overall sample. Male dysphonic patients (n = 283; 54%) outnumbered the females (n = 241; 46%). The majority of patients consulting the voice clinic for dysphonia were between 25 and 64 years. The most common occupations seeking help for voice problems were homemaker, student, teacher, business, farmer, retired, singer, and laborer. The overall perceived hoarseness was significantly higher in males compared to females. Conclusion: The present study results allowed a better understanding of characteristics of treatment-seeking population for voice disorders visiting voice clinic. Identification of characteristics and diagnosis of individuals seeking treatment for voice disorders help the speech language pathologists to increase the awareness among the general population about preventive voice care strategies.