Influence of smoking isolated and associated to multifactorial aspects in vocal acoustic parameters

Abstract

IntroductionSmoking affect voice quality in a long period of time, but other factors may compromise it, such as professional using of voice, habits, alcohol dependence and GERD. The aim was associate the influence of these factors on vocal parameters. Study designContemporary cohort study with cross-sectional. Materials and methodsEighty adults of 35 to 60 years old had participated in this study, they had been divided into two groups, smokers (GF) and control (GC). There was application of questionnaire and voices were recorded. Praat software has been used for voice assessment and Man-Whitney, chi-square and logistic regression has been used for statistical analysis. ResultsThe GF had a higher incidence of alcohol dependence, coughing, throat clearing and professional voice using. Respecting to the acoustic parameters: noise-to-harmonic ratio (NHR), jitter and shimmer, the GF presented higher values. Relating these data to the questionnaire, it's noticed that female gender have influence over all acoustic parameters, GERD have influence over jitter and smoking can affect fundamental frequency, jitter, shimmer and NHR. ConclusionSmoking interferes in acoustics parameters isolated and associated with alcohol dependence, GERD, cough, throat clearing, gender and professional using of voice.© 2014 Associação Brasileira de Otorrinolaringologia e Cirurgia Cérvico-Facial. Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda. All rights reserved.