Evaluating the Impact of Vocal Health Education on Mask-wearing Workers During COVID-19

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Health Behavior
• Interventions: Behavioral: Educational Vocal Health Modules

• Registration Number: NCT04858542
• Lead Sponsor: University of Cincinnati

Brief Summary

The purpose of this clinical trial is to understand how viewing educational health modules impacts vocal health behaviors in mask-wearing healthcare workers.

Detailed Description

Results of the investigators' previous work showed that mask-wearing healthcare workers have difficulty with voice and communication. Healthcare workers reported significant increases in vocal effort and dyspnea while wearing masks, and showed greater effort and poorer vocal quality at the end of the workday compared to the beginning of the day. Despite these negative changes, very few healthcare workers reported using any type of communication strategy (e.g., taking breaks, using gestures). Therefore, the investigators developed educational modules to address the voice and communication problems facing this population. This clinical trial plans to evaluate how these educational modules impact subjective/objective voice and communication measures in mask-wearing healthcare workers.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2021-02-26
• Study First Submitted: 2021-03-22
• Study First Submitted QC: 2021-04-22
• Study First Posted: 2021-04-26
• Primary Completion: 2021-05-01
• Study Completion: 2021-09-01
• Status Verified: 2021-12
• Last Update Submitted: 2021-12-31
• Last Update Posted: 2022-01-04

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 5

Inclusion Criteria

• English Speaker
• Occupational voice user who is required to wear a mask at work

Exclusion Criteria

• History of neurological disorder or disease
• History of head/neck cancer
• Current speech, language, voice, or hearing problem/disorder
• Currently sick or have been sick within the last 14 days, or is waiting on a COVID-19 test result

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: SINGLE_GROUP

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Mask-wearing healthcare workers	Educational Vocal Health Modules	All participants in this arm will view the educational health modules and their subjective/objective outcomes will be measure pre/post module viewing.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Change in amount of Vocal Effort after 1 week	Assessed prior to module viewing and again 1-week later	A self-perceptual rating of voice exertion and how hard it is to make a voice. The vocal effort scale will be rated on a 100-mm visual analog scale in which the left side (score of 0) indicates "no effort" to produce a voice, and the right side (score of 100) indicates "the most effort" to create a voice.
Learning of Health Information	Assessed immediately after viewing the modules	Answer questions about the content of the module (short answer, multiple choice, true/false)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Change in Relative fundamental frequency	Assessed prior to viewing modules, and then 1-week later	An acoustic measure that characterizes change in fundamental frequency during voicing transitions. Participants will complete vowel-voiceless consonant-vowel combinations (e.g., /ifi/) and relative fundamental frequency will be determined.
Module Information Retention	Assessed at second session	Answer question about the content of the modules (short answer, multiple choice, true/false)

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Victoria McKenna; 🇺🇸 Cincinnati, Ohio, United States