Adherence of the dysphonic teachers in speech therapy.

PURPOSE: To study the possible factors associated with adherence to the speech-language pathology treatment of dysphonia in female teachers of municipal schools of Belo Horizonte.

METHODS

This was a retrospective study that analyzed the medical records of 251 teachers treated at the Voice Ambulatory Speech Language Pathology Service, Hospital das Clínicas da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (AV-UFMG) from August 2007 to December 2009. The collected data included age, number of scheduled sessions, number of absences, number of children, type of dysphonia, degree of dysphonia, monthly family income, and education. We calculated the distance, in kilometers, of the residence to the place of treatment and the workplace to place of treatment. We also analyzed the social vulnerability index of the workplace.

RESULTS

The results of this research indicated that of the 135 records that were included in the study, 89 (65.93%) corresponded to the discharged group and 46 (34.07%) corresponded to the abandonment group. In comparison with all the variables studied, only the number of faults and the type of dysphonia were associated with poor adherence to voice therapy.

CONCLUSION

Results showed that the number of absences in sessions, treatment-related factor, organofuncional dysphonia type, and clinical-related factor were all associated with the abandonment of voice therapy.