Glottal function index questionnaire for screening of pediatric dysphonia.

Objective: to assess the diagnostic value of Lithuanian version of Glottal Function Index (GFI-LT) questionnaire in pediatric dysphonia screening.

Methods: The GFI-LT was completed by 82 children (7-16 years old): 41 patients with voice disorders (patients group) and 41 healthy subjects (control group). Auditory-perceptual evaluation of voice was performed using the Grade Roughness Breathiness (GRB) protocol. Acoustic voice analysis was accomplished for F0, SDF0, jitter, shimmer and NNE using Dr. Speech, Tiger Elemetrics software. To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy differentiating normal and dysphonic voice, the receiver operating characteristic statistics were used.

Results: Perceptually dysphonia was revealed in all children of the patients group. Grade I (65.9%) was the most prevalent (p > 0.05). No dysphonia was detected in the control group. Acoustic voice analysis revealed statistically significantly (p < 0.001) deteriorated all acoustic voice parameters in patients' group comparing to control group. Statistically significant (p < 0.05) strong or moderate correlations were found between the GFI-LT, auditory-perceptual rating and all acoustic voice parameters of the patients group. The strongest correlations were observed between GFI-LT and G (r = 0.70), R (r = 0.69), jitter (r = 0.56) and SDF0 (r = 0.56). No statistically significant correlations between GFI-LT and children' age or gender were found (p > 0.05). The GFI-LT cut-off score of ≥3.0 was associated with excellent test accuracy (AUC = 0.961) distinguishing children with voice disorders from healthy controls, resulting in a balance between sensitivity and specificity (95.1% vs 85.4%).

Conclusion: GFI-LT is considered to be a valid and reliable tool for self-assessment and screening of voice disorders in children.