Reliability of perceptions of voice quality: evidence from a problem asthma clinic population

Methods of perceptual voice evaluation have yet to achieve satisfactory consistency; complete acceptance of a recognised clinical protocol is still some way off. Three speech and language therapists rated the voices of 43 patients attending the problem asthma clinic of a teaching hospital, according...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of laryngology and otology 2009-07, Vol.123 (7), p.755-763
Main Authors: Sellars, C, Stanton, A E, McConnachie, A, Dunnet, C P, Chapman, L M, Bucknall, C E, MacKenzie, K
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Analysis of Variance
Asthma
Asthma - complications
Asthma - drug therapy
Biological and medical sciences
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma
Digital audio tape
Dysphonia - chemically induced
Dysphonia - etiology
Dysphonia - therapy
Female
Humans
Language
Larynx
Larynx - drug effects
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Observer Variation
Otolaryngology
Otorhinolaryngology. Stomatology
Pathology
Patients
Pneumology
Practice Guidelines as Topic
Reproducibility of Results
Speech
Speech Acoustics
Speech Perception - physiology
Speech-Language Pathology
Tumors
Voice Quality
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Summary:Methods of perceptual voice evaluation have yet to achieve satisfactory consistency; complete acceptance of a recognised clinical protocol is still some way off. Three speech and language therapists rated the voices of 43 patients attending the problem asthma clinic of a teaching hospital, according to the grade-roughness-breathiness-asthenicity-strain (GRBAS) scale and other perceptual categories. Use of the GRBAS scale achieved only a 64.7 per cent inter-rater reliability and a 69.6 per cent intra-rater reliability for the grade component. One rater achieved a higher degree of consistency. Improved concordance on the GRBAS scale was observed for subjects with laryngeal abnormalities. Raters failed to reach any useful level of agreement in the other categories employed, except for perceived gender. These results should sound a note of caution regarding routine adoption of the GRBAS scale for characterising voice quality for clinical purposes. The importance of training and the use of perceptual anchors for reliable perceptual rating need to be further investigated.
ISSN:0022-2151
1748-5460
DOI:10.1017/S0022215109004605