Personal Protective Equipment Effects

Istanbul Medeniyet University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Voice Disorders; Speech Disorders

Treatments: Device: mask use

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05369663

Effects on speech acoustics

Details and patient eligibility

About

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 transmits through droplets; thus, oral, nasal, and conjunctival mucosas are related to contamination, and wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) is strongly suggested. Several communication problems between the patient and healthcare workers related to PPE use are reported. In this study, investigators aimed to investigate changes in the acoustic parameters of speech sounds when different PPE are used.

Full description

It was planned as a cross-sectional study enrolled 18 healthy male and female participants. After the informed consent, participants were asked to pronounce a [ɑː] vowel for at least 3 seconds for voice quality estimation. Afterward, all Turkish vowels were produced for a minimum of 200 ms. Finally, three Turkish fricative consonants ([f], [s], [ʃ]) were produced in consonant/vowel/consonant format and in different vowel contexts within a carrier sentence. Recordings were repeated for the following conditions: no PPE, surgical-mask, N99-mask, face shield, surgical-mask+faceshield, and N99+faceshield. All recordings were analyzed with proper statistical methods.

Enrollment: 36 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 65 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• native Turkish speakers

Exclusion criteria

• having an acute respiratory system infection history of any vocal fold surgery

Trial design

36 participants in 6 patient groups

no mask

Description:

no mask use

surgical mask

Description:

surgical mask use

Treatment:

Device: mask use

N99 mask

Description:

N99 mask use

Treatment:

Device: mask use

face shield

Description:

face shield use

Treatment:

Device: mask use

surgical mask+ faceshield

Description:

surgical mask+ faceshield use

Treatment:

Device: mask use

N99 mask+ faceshield

Description:

N99 mask+ faceshield use

Treatment:

Device: mask use