Relationship Between Room Acoustics With Voice Symptoms and Voice-Related Quality of Life Among Colombian School and College Teachers During Online Classes in Times of COVID-19 Pandemic.
Lady Catherine Cantor-Cutiva
PMID 35473912WHAT IT FOUND
Teachers teaching online during COVID-19 who reported more echo in their room and more stress also reported lower voice-related quality of life.
Stress and longer teaching experience were linked to hoarseness. Thirty-two teachers self-reported.
Key findings
01After accounting for other factors, high reverberation time and stress were associated with slightly reduced voice-related quality of life scores.
02After accounting for other factors, high reverberation time and months teaching online were associated with the vocal fatigue factor about improvement of symptoms with rest.
03After accounting for other factors, stress and years of experience were associated with increased odds of reporting hoarseness.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study included only thirty-two teachers recruited by convenience sampling, so it may not represent all teachers. It was cross-sectional and exploratory, so it cannot show that echoey rooms or stress caused voice problems. All information came from teachers' self-reports, which may overestimate the reported associations. Stress was measured with a general item, not a work-specific stress measure, so it is unclear whether stress came from the pandemic, the teaching environment, or both. The teachers were working from home during COVID-19 restrictions, so the findings may not apply to ordinary classroom teaching.
Declared interests
The authors report no conflicts of interest and state that they alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that echoey rooms or stress caused voice problems, or that reducing echo or stress will improve voice. This was a cross-sectional self-report survey of thirty-two teachers, and some voice-break associations did not remain after accounting for other factors.