[Validation of the Acoustic Voice Quality Index in the Russian language].

THE AIM

Of this study was to validate the Acoustic Voice Quality Index (AVQI) in Russian language and determine threshold values to differentiate normal and dysphonic voices in russophone population.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

41 recordings of patients with laryngeal hemiplegia and hemiparesis appeared after thyroid carcinomas' surgical treatment and laryngeal cancer from the Tomsk Cancer Research Institute were used, as well as 10 new recordings of normophonic people, composing a control group. Voice samples included the first quatrain of the poem «Sail» written by M.Yu. Lermontov, and sustained vowel «a». Four specialists who work with voice disorders (three speech-language pathologists and one phoniatrist) rated degree of dysphonia for all voice sample. Moreover, the AVQI was calculated for each sample.

RESULTS

There was a statistically significant correlation between auditory-perceptual assessment and the AVQI (=0.74), this confirms that AVQI is effective in evaluating voice disorders. The group of people with normal voice had relatively low values of AVQI, whereas the group of patients with laryngeal diseases had relatively high values. Analysis of ROC-curve showed that AVQI has excellent diagnostic accuracy to differentiate normal and dysphonic voices (AUC=0.966).

CONCLUSIONS

The AVQI is the excellent tool for objective assessment of voice disorders in the Russian population/.