Klaske van Sluis

Objective and subjective voice outcomes: a systematic review 35 Voice-Related Quality of Life One level B rated study [47] ( n =75) used the Voice-Related Quality of Life (V-RQOL) within the groups of ES, TES and ELS [47]. ES reported a better V-RQOL compared to ELS. TES reported a better V-RQOL than ES and ELS. The V-RQOL of TES was significantly better compared to ELS [47]. 2.3.4 Summary of results In Table 2.5 a summary of the significant differences between the speech reha- bilitation is provided. Comparative studies of the three rehabilitation methods themselves show that TES is rated as superior to ES for the acoustic outcome measures F0, MPT and intensity [27, 33, 34, 52], whereas no acoustic data is available for ELS in the included studies. According to the applied percep- tual evaluations, TES is rated as superior to ES and ELS, with regards to both voice quality and intelligibility. ES is superior to ELS for the perceptual outcome measure intelligibility. In PRO studies, none of the speech rehabilita- tion methods showed evidently better outcomes. One study reported significant better outcomes for TES compared to ES [47], but another study showed the opposite [51]. A level A rated study reports a similarly moderate degree of perceived voice handicap in TES and ELS [30]. Table 2.5: Summary of table 2.4, studies that found a significant difference between speech methods per outcome measure TES > ES TES > ELS ES > ELS ES > TES Fundamental Arias et al. [27] — — — frequency Bellandese et al. [33] Blood [34] Siric et al. [52] MPT Siric et al. [52] — — — Intensity Siric et al. [52] — — — Perceptual Williams&Watson Eadie et al. [30] — — voice [54] Williams&Watson quality [54] Perceptual Williams&Watson [54] Eadie et al. [30] Williams&Watson [54] — intelligibility Williams&Watson [54] PROs — Moukarbel [47] Salturk et al. [51] Salturk et al. [51] > Indicating a better mean group outcome. Level of significance was held at p ≤ .05. Studies presented in bold had a level A risk of bias. ES esophageal speakers, TES tracheoesophageal speakers, ELS electrolarynx speakers, MPT maximum phonation time, V-RQOL voice-related quality of life