Investigation of Relationship Between Auditory-Perceptual Methods and Self-reported Speech Handicap Index in the Assessment of Substitution Voicing.

Objective: To assess correlations between auditory-perceptual and self-reported speech evaluation methods for substitution voicing (SV) and to investigate the robustness of these methods in a clinical setting.

Methods: Fifty-nine male patients who underwent laryngeal oncosurgery and 62 healthy male controls were included in this prospective study. Lithuanian versions of the Speech Handicap Index (SHI-LT) and Impression of voice quality (I), Impression of intelligibility (I), Unintended additive Noise (N), Fluency (F), and Quality of Voicing (Vo) scale (IINFVo-LT) were used to assess and compare self-reported and auditory-perceptual evaluations of SV. Speech samples were rated by a panel of experienced raters.

Results: The IINFVo-LT revealed good inter-rater reliability (ICC = 0.825) and intrarater reliability over time (ICC = 0.976) when assessing SV. Statistically significant differences (P < 0.05) of the mean scores of IINFVo-LT among the cordectomy, partial laryngectomy (22.52 [SD 9.98]), tracheoesophageal prosthesis (16.92 [SD 10.71]), and control (48.01 [SD 2.88]) groups confirmed the usefulness of IINFVo-LT for SV rating. A moderate negative correlation (r = -0.61; P < 0.001) demonstrated good concurrent validity between the IINFVo-LT and the SHI-LT total scores. A statistically significant, strong, negative correlation (r = -0.74) was obtained between the IINFVo-LT and SHI-LT speech handicap grade (P < 0.001), demonstrating good concurrent validity.

Conclusion: The combination of IINFVo-LT and SHI-LT represents a potentially valuable and robust tool for evaluating SV and is helpful for assessing the degree of speech abnormality after laryngeal oncosurgery and its impact on patients' quality of life.