Causes and consequences of voice disorders among teachers

Abstract Voice disorders are a major problem among teachers. However, the reported prevalence of these disorders have a wide range, and the natural variation of voice disorders among teachers is unknown due to the lack of longitudinal studies. Moreover, there is not a consensus about the best approach for assessing voice disorders among teachers at work. Results on prevalence of voice disorders in this occupational group are based on different sources (questionnaires, perceptual assessment, clinical assessment, acoustical assessment), which make difficult the comparison of these results. On the other hand, associated factors of voice disorders among teachers include individual factors, such as sex and age; and work-r

Análisis fono-ergonómico de la disfonía ocupacional en docentes: influencia del espacio físico en la presencia de la disfonía

La realización de las labores diarias de los docentes, los expone a diferentes factores de riesgo que pueden desencadenar diversos problemas de salud. Objetivo: caracterizar las condiciones de slud vocal de los docentes, y las condiciones acústicas de tres facultades de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Procedimientos: se realizó un estudio descriptivo transversal, en el que participaron 38 docentes de tres facultades de la sede Bogotá de la UNAL. Luego de una revisión teórica se adaptó un formato de valoración fono-ergonómica de disfonía ocupacional en docentes. La información recolectada fue analizada con el software SPSS 11.5. La presente investigación preservó los aspectos éticos de investigación en humanos, y fue realizada luego de obtener el aval del Vomité de Ética y el Consentimiento Informado de los participantes. Resultados: de los 38 docentes evaluados el 39,5 % presentó problema vocal en alguno de los aspectos medidos por la escala GIRBAS. En cuanto a las mediciones ambientales, en los salones evaluados de Ciencias Económicas el 36,36% presentó mala acústica según el índice de Acústica Total, en Derecho el 60% de los salones tuvo acústica regular, y en Enfermería el 66,66% presento regular acústica. Conclusiones: debido a la falta de demanda de cupos en la UNAL se han utilizado espacios que no habían sido construidos para el desarrollo de actividades docentes, sin rtealizar las adaptaciones del caso. Así, en las aulas evaluadas se identifican espacios de clase que no presentan las condiciones físicas mínimas para el adecuado desarrollo de las actividades de enseñanza-aprendizaje /Abstract Teachers are exposed to different work conditions that affect their health, wellbeing, and quality of life. Aim: to describe physical spaces acoustic conditions at classrooms and to describe vocal health conditions to some Colombian National University. Procedures: a transversal descriptive study was development with 38 professors who works in 3 faculties, and 25 classrooms in Bogota City. After teorichal revision was adapted fonoergonomic valuation of occupational dysphonia format. Information recollected was analyzed with SPSS 11,5 software. This investigation respect national and international ethical parameters, this investigation was done after to get institutional authorization, Informed Consent, and Ethical Committee approbation; this project has ethical avail. Results: 39.5% of evaluated professors had vocal problem in some of GRIBAS aspects. According environmental measurements, at Economics Faculty the 63.63% of classroom had acoustic bad according Total Acoustic Index, while Law Faculty 40% of classroom has bad acoustic, and Nursery Faculty 33.3% had bad acoustic. Conclusions: According to high demand of admitting students in National University, this institution has used spaces that had not being constructed for teacher activities, without space adaptations. This context has generated that some class spaces do not have minimal conditions according to teaching activities.Maestrí

Salud y seguridad en el trabajo en tiempos de Covid-19

En 2019, cuando se reportaron en China los primeros casos de la enfermedad ocasionada por el SARS-CoV-2, el mundo pensó que esto sería algo pasajero y que no trascendería las fronteras de Wuhan, población donde se originó el virus. No obstante, a octubre de 2021, la pandemia lleva más de un año entre nosotros, ha causado 4.899.169 muertes, y ha cambiado la forma de interactuar, vivir y trabajar de las personas. Las dificultades propias de una pandemia que apenas comenzaba y el hecho de tener poca información sobre su origen, tratamiento y prevención afectaron especialmente a los trabajadores del sector salud. No obstante, el panorama se fue aclarando poco a poco, gracias a la investigación científica, al confinamiento y a ciertas pautas emanadas por la Organización Mundial de la Salud que, entre otras, insistió en la necesidad de conservar el distanciamiento social, el lavado de manos constante y el uso de tapabocas para evitar el contagio. Con esto en mente, profesores de las Facultades de Medicina, Enfermería, Ingeniería (Bogotá y Palmira), Artes, y Ciencias Económicas presentan en este libro generalidades sobre el COVID-19, y su impacto y desafíos para el campo de salud y seguridad en el trabajo. Los autores esperan que este libro sea un buen recurso para las personas que se desempeñan en el área de la salud y seguridad en el trabajo durante estos tiempos de COVID-19 y pospandemia precisamente ahora, cuando todo parece regresar a la normalidad y cuando las voces autorizadas aseguran que no se debe bajar la guardia pues es probable que aparezcan otras cepas del virus y que el orden mundial se vea alterado nuevamente.Introducción Covid-19: modelo de infección emergente causada por coronavirus humano (SARS-CoV-2) La seguridad y salud trabajo: desafíos y respuestas frente a la pandemia de COVID-19 Aplicación de la Jerarquía de control en la atención de la pandemia por el SARSCoV-2 La mujer trabajadora en tiempos de la covid-19 Cambios en la relación salud-trabajo de docentes universitarios debido a la pandemia COVID-19 (SARS-COV.2) Amenaza inminente para los trabajadores del sector salud Medidas de control ambientales y administrativas de la infección por SAR-Cov-2 en instituciones de salud La prevención del contagio de SARV-Cov-2 en trabajadores de la salud Trabajo, organizaciones y tecnologías digitales: incidencias para el trabajo en el contexto del COVID-19 Costo de la pérdida de productividad asociada a la COVID-19 en población en edad de trabajar en Colombia Autores Índice temátic

Objective voice parameters in Colombian school workers with healthy voices

Objectives: To characterize the objective voice parameters among school workers, and to identify associated factors of three object

Classroom acoustics conditions at public University in Bogotá

Artículos originales[ES] Introducción: En el sector de la docencia una situación frecuente son las precarias condiciones acústicas de las aulas. Objetivo: Caracterizar las condiciones acústicas de algunas aulas de una universidad pública en Bogotá. Material y Métodos: Durante el I semestre del 2009 se realizó un estudio descriptivo transversal, seevaluaron 25 salones de una universidad pública de Bogotá, los cuales fueron seleccionados de forma aleatoria según los reportes de docentes previamente entrevistados. Resultados: De los 25 salones medidos en la facultad 1 el 63,63% de los salones medidos presentó muy mala acústica según el índice de Acústica Total, mientras que en la Facultad 2 el 40% de los salones tuvo mala acústica, y en la Facultad 3 el 33,3% presentó acústica mala. Conclusiones: La ausencia de estudios en los que se reporten mediciones objetivas de tiempo de reverberación (TR) e inteligibilidad evidencia la necesidad de realizar disertaciones de este tipo buscando generar herramientas que permitan mejorar las condiciones de salud, trabajo y vida de este grupo ocupacional.[EN] Introduction: Teachers complain about bad acoustic conditions in their classroom frequently. Aim: to describe some classroom acoustic conditions at Colombian Estate University in Bogotá city. Material and Methods: a transversal descriptive study was development in the first semester of 2009, 25 classrooms was measured at Colombian University in Bogota City, this classroom was selected randomized way according preview teachers evaluated reporting. Results: about 25 measured classroom at Faculty 1 63.63% of classroom had acoustic bad according Total Acoustic Index, while at Faculty 2 40% of classroom has bad acoustic, and Faculty 3 33.3% had bad acoustic. Conclusions: studies to report reverberation time (TR) and intelligibility objectives measurements are a few, this exposed it is necessary to do dissertations to investigate and to contribute tools according to determinate better health, job and life conditions in this occupational group.N

One-year longitudinal study on teachers’ voice parameters in secondary-school classrooms: relationships with voice quality assessed by perceptual analysis and voice objective measures

This longitudinal work explores the relationships between three analyses used for assessing teachers’ voice use: the voice monitoring during lessons that describes the teachers’ Vocal Behavior (VB), the perceptual assessment of voice by speech-language pathologists and the estimation of objective parameters from vocalizations to define teachers’ Vocal Performance (VP). About thirty Italian teachers from secondary schools were involved at the beginning and at the end of a school year. In each period, teachers’ vocal activity was monitored using the Voice Care device, which acquires the voice signal through a contact microphone fixed at the neck to estimate sound pressure level, fundamental frequency and voicing time percentage. Once in each period, two speech-language pathologists performed a perceptual assessment of teachers’ voice using the GIRBAS-scale. On that occasion, teachers vocalized a sustained vowel standing in front of a sound level meter in a quiet room. Jitter, Shimmer and other parameters were extracted using Praat, while a new metric of Cepstral-Peak-Prominance-Smoothed was estimated with a MATLAB script. Several relationships between the outcomes of each analysis were investigated, e.g. statistical differences between the dimension “G” from GIRBAS-scale and objective measures for VB and VP, and correlations between objective measures and perceptual ratings were assessed

Análisis fono-ergonómico de la disfonía ocupacional en docentes: influencia del espacio físico en la presencia de la disfonía

La realización de las labores diarias de los docentes, los expone a diferentes factores de riesgo que pueden desencadenar diversos problemas de salud. Objetivo: caracterizar las condiciones de slud vocal de los docentes, y las condiciones acústicas de tres facultades de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Procedimientos: se realizó un estudio descriptivo transversal, en el que participaron 38 docentes de tres facultades de la sede Bogotá de la UNAL. Luego de una revisión teórica se adaptó un formato de valoración fono-ergonómica de disfonía ocupacional en docentes. La información recolectada fue analizada con el software SPSS 11.5. La presente investigación preservó los aspectos éticos de investigación en humanos, y fue realizada luego de obtener el aval del Vomité de Ética y el Consentimiento Informado de los participantes. Resultados: de los 38 docentes evaluados el 39,5 % presentó problema vocal en alguno de los aspectos medidos por la escala GIRBAS. En cuanto a las mediciones ambientales, en los salones evaluados de Ciencias Económicas el 36,36% presentó mala acústica según el índice de Acústica Total, en Derecho el 60% de los salones tuvo acústica regular, y en Enfermería el 66,66% presento regular acústica. Conclusiones: debido a la falta de demanda de cupos en la UNAL se han utilizado espacios que no habían sido construidos para el desarrollo de actividades docentes, sin rtealizar las adaptaciones del caso. Así, en las aulas evaluadas se identifican espacios de clase que no presentan las condiciones físicas mínimas para el adecuado desarrollo de las actividades de enseñanza-aprendizaje /Abstract Teachers are exposed to different work conditions that affect their health, wellbeing, and quality of life. Aim: to describe physical spaces acoustic conditions at classrooms and to describe vocal health conditions to some Colombian National University. Procedures: a transversal descriptive study was development with 38 professors who works in 3 faculties, and 25 classrooms in Bogota City. After teorichal revision was adapted fonoergonomic valuation of occupational dysphonia format. Information recollected was analyzed with SPSS 11,5 software. This investigation respect national and international ethical parameters, this investigation was done after to get institutional authorization, Informed Consent, and Ethical Committee approbation; this project has ethical avail. Results: 39.5% of evaluated professors had vocal problem in some of GRIBAS aspects. According environmental measurements, at Economics Faculty the 63.63% of classroom had acoustic bad according Total Acoustic Index, while Law Faculty 40% of classroom has bad acoustic, and Nursery Faculty 33.3% had bad acoustic. Conclusions: According to high demand of admitting students in National University, this institution has used spaces that had not being constructed for teacher activities, without space adaptations. This context has generated that some class spaces do not have minimal conditions according to teaching activities.Maestrí

Association between occupational voice use and occurrence of voice disorders: a meta-analysis

Purpose: This meta-analysis has two aims: 1) to provide a quantitative assessment of the occurrence of voice disorders among different occupational voice users, 2) and to determine whether being an occupational voice user (teacher, broadcaster, call-center worker, etc.) is associated with an increased occurrence of voice disorders. Method: A random-effect meta-analysis of the available scientific literature was conducted on the occurrence of voice disorders among occupational voice users. Comprehensive literature searches were conducted using two computerized databases: PubMed/MEDLINE, and Scielo. As a measure of association, the odds ratio (OR) with corresponding 95% confidence interval (95% CI) was used. Heterogeneity was assessed by chi-square and I2 and draw in forest plots. Results: Voice disorders are related with occupational voice use independently of type of prevalence with a pool OR of 2.39 for current voice disorders, 1.88 for 12-months prevalence, and 2.43 for life-time and unspecified recall period. Heterogeneity test (I2) among these articles is 68% for current voice disorders, 0% for 12-months voice disorders, and 66% for life-time and unspecified recall period. Although around 70% of the total number of included publications assessed the occurrence of voice disorders among teachers as occupational voice users, an analysis per occupation was performed to identify possible influence of this factor in the occurrence of voice disorders. Studies that include just teachers as the group of occupational voice users (n=12) reported ORs ranging from 1.20 to 4.61. Heterogeneity test (I2) among these articles is 17%. Studies that include telemarketers, newsreaders, and sellers as the group of occupational voice users (n=6) reported ORs ranging from 0.85 when future vocal professionals were compared future non-vocal professionals to 4.58 when newsreaders were compared with non-newsreaders. Heterogeneity test (I2) among these articles is 40%. Conclusion: Occupational voice users have a higher likelihood of having voice disorders. Results of this meta-analysis show that teachers had a slightly lower likelihood (pool OR=1.95) than telemarketers, broadcasters, and sellers (pool OR=2.75) for having a voice disorder regardless the type of prevalence. Nevertheless, due the weak to moderate quality of the included studies, the results should be taken with caution.Este metanálisis tiene dos objetivos: 1) determinar si ser un usuario de voz ocupacional (maestro, locutor, trabajador de un centro de atención telefónica, etc.) está asociado con una mayor incidencia de trastornos de la voz, 2) y proporcionar un análisis cuantitativo evaluando la aparición de trastornos de la voz entre diferentes usuarios de voz ocupacional. Método: se realizó un metanálisis del efecto aleatorio sobre la aparición de trastornos de la voz entre los usuarios de voz ocupacional. Se realizaron búsquedas exhaustivas en la literatura utilizando dos bases de datos computarizadas: PubMed / MEDLINE y Scielo. Como medida de asociación, se utilizó el odds ratio (OR) con el correspondiente intervalo de confianza del 95% (IC del 95%). La heterogeneidad se evaluó mediante chi-cuadrado e I2. Resultados: los trastornos de la voz están relacionados con el uso de la voz ocupacional independientemente del tipo de prevalencia con un grupo OR de 2.39 para los trastornos de la voz actuales, 1.88 para la prevalencia de 12 meses y 2.43 para el período de vida y el período de recuerdo no especificado. Los estudios que incluyeron maestros como el grupo de usuarios de voz ocupacional (n = 12) reportaron OR que van desde 1.20 a 4.61. Los estudios que incluyen vendedores telefónicos, lectores de noticias y vendedores como el grupo de usuarios de voz ocupacional (n = 6) reportaron OR que van desde 0.85 cuando se comparó futuros profesionales vocales con profesionales no vocales existió una relación 4.58. Conclusión: los usuarios de voz ocupacionales tienen una mayor probabilidad de tener trastornos de la voz. Los maestros tenían una probabilidad ligeramente más baja que los vendedores por teléfono, los organismos de radiodifusión y los vendedores de tener un trastorno de la voz, independientemente del tipo de prevalencia. Sin embargo, debido a la calidad débil a moderada de los estudios incluidos, los resultados deben tomarse con precaució

Parámetros objetivos de la voz de trabajadores escolares colombianos con voces saludables

Objectives: To characterize the objective voice parameters among school workers, and to identify associated factors of three objective voice parameters, namely fundamental frequency, sound pressure level and maximum phonation time. Materials and methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study among 116 Colombian teachers and 20 Colombian non-teachers. After signing the informed consent form, participants filled out a questionnaire. Then, a voice sample was recorded and evaluated perceptually by a speech therapist and by objective voice analysis with praat software. Short-term environmental measurements of sound level, temperature, humidity, and reverberation time were conducted during visits at the workplaces, such as classrooms and offices. Linear regression analysis was used to determine associations between individual and work-related factors and objective voice parameters. Results: Compared with men, women had higher fundamental frequency (201 Hz for teachers and 209 for non-teachers vs. 120 Hz for teachers and 127 for non-teachers) and sound pressure level (82 dB vs. 80 dB), and shorter maximum phonation time (around 14 seconds vs. around 16 seconds). Female teachers younger than 50 years of age evidenced a significant tendency to speak with lower fundamental frequency and shorter mpt compared with female teachers older than 50 years of age. Female teachers had significantly higher fundamental frequency (66 Hz), higher sound pressure level (2 dB) and short phonation time (2 seconds) than male teachers. Conclusion: Female teachers younger than 50 years of age had significantly lower F0 and shorter mpt compared with those older than 50 years of age. The multivariate analysis showed that gender was a much more important determinant of variations in F0, spl and mpt than age and teaching occupation. Objectively measured temperature also contributed to the changes on spl among school workers

Programas de promoción de la salud en el lugar de trabajo entre el personal sanitario: una revisión sistemática de la literatura

Objective: To identify the effect of workplace health promotion activities (WHPA) on the health status of health personnel. Methodology: A systematic literature review was performed. Six computerized databases were used to search for studies on the effect of at least one health promotion activity on the health status of health personnel. Studies were included if they were published in peer-reviewed and indexed journals and were written either in English, Spanish, or Portuguese. Information such as study population, sample size, type of study, outcome, and health promotion activities performed were extracted from each publication. All the included articles were measured in terms of their methodological quality, including the risk of bias. Results: Lower scores on perceived stress, emotional exhaustion, and mood symptoms were reported. An improvement in sleep hours and quality and a reduction in dietary sodium intake were informed. Improvements in participants’ dietary habits, weight loss, and body fat percentage, along with increased physical activity and a reduction in pain levels were reported. A reduction in the prevalence of cigarette smoking was found. Conclusions: WHPAs can enhance physical and mental health, and overall well-being, and encouraging healthier behaviors among health personnel. Most of the studies targeting mental health focused their efforts primarily on reducing healthcare workers’ perceived stress. WHPAs that addressed both diet and physical activity behaviors were more effective at improving weight outcomes than those that used only one approximation. Overall, this study offers valuable information on the impact of worksite-based health promotion interventions, including the effect of different strategies applied