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The Impact of Protective Face Coverings on Acoustic Markers in Voice: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: Wearing respiratory protective masks (RPMs) has become common worldwide, especially in healthcare settings, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hypotheses have suggested that sound transmission could be limited by RPMs, which possibly affects the characteristics of acoustic energy...

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Autores principales: Barsties v. Latoszek, Ben, Jansen, Viktoria, Watts, Christopher R., Hetjens, Svetlana
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10531748/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37762863
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jcm12185922
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author Barsties v. Latoszek, Ben
Jansen, Viktoria
Watts, Christopher R.
Hetjens, Svetlana
author_facet Barsties v. Latoszek, Ben
Jansen, Viktoria
Watts, Christopher R.
Hetjens, Svetlana
author_sort Barsties v. Latoszek, Ben
collection PubMed
description Background: Wearing respiratory protective masks (RPMs) has become common worldwide, especially in healthcare settings, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hypotheses have suggested that sound transmission could be limited by RPMs, which possibly affects the characteristics of acoustic energy and speech intelligibility. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of RPMs on acoustic measurements through a systematic review with meta-analysis. Methods: Five database searches were conducted, ranging from their inception to August 2023, as well as a manual search. Cross-sectional studies were included that provided data on widely used gender-independent clinical acoustic voice quality measures (jitter, shimmer, HNR, CPPS, and AVQI) and habitual sound pressure level (SPL). Results: We found nine eligible research studies with a total of 422 participants who were compared both without masks and with different types of masks. All included studies focused on individuals with vocally healthy voices, while two of the studies also included those with voice disorders. The results from the meta-analysis were related to medical/surgical and FFP2/(K)N95 masks. None of the acoustic measurements showed significant differences between the absence and presence of masks (p > 0.05). When indirectly comparing both mask types, statistical significance was identified for parameters of jitter, HNR, CPPS and SPL (p < 0.001). Conclusions: The present meta-analysis indicates that certain types of RPMs have no significant influence on common voice quality parameters and SPL compared to recordings without masks. Nevertheless, it is plausible that significant differences in acoustic parameters might exist between different mask types. Consequently, it is advisable for the clinical practice to always use the same mask type when using RPMs to ensure high comparability and accuracy of measurement results.
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spelling pubmed-105317482023-09-28 The Impact of Protective Face Coverings on Acoustic Markers in Voice: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Barsties v. Latoszek, Ben Jansen, Viktoria Watts, Christopher R. Hetjens, Svetlana J Clin Med Article Background: Wearing respiratory protective masks (RPMs) has become common worldwide, especially in healthcare settings, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hypotheses have suggested that sound transmission could be limited by RPMs, which possibly affects the characteristics of acoustic energy and speech intelligibility. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of RPMs on acoustic measurements through a systematic review with meta-analysis. Methods: Five database searches were conducted, ranging from their inception to August 2023, as well as a manual search. Cross-sectional studies were included that provided data on widely used gender-independent clinical acoustic voice quality measures (jitter, shimmer, HNR, CPPS, and AVQI) and habitual sound pressure level (SPL). Results: We found nine eligible research studies with a total of 422 participants who were compared both without masks and with different types of masks. All included studies focused on individuals with vocally healthy voices, while two of the studies also included those with voice disorders. The results from the meta-analysis were related to medical/surgical and FFP2/(K)N95 masks. None of the acoustic measurements showed significant differences between the absence and presence of masks (p > 0.05). When indirectly comparing both mask types, statistical significance was identified for parameters of jitter, HNR, CPPS and SPL (p < 0.001). Conclusions: The present meta-analysis indicates that certain types of RPMs have no significant influence on common voice quality parameters and SPL compared to recordings without masks. Nevertheless, it is plausible that significant differences in acoustic parameters might exist between different mask types. Consequently, it is advisable for the clinical practice to always use the same mask type when using RPMs to ensure high comparability and accuracy of measurement results. MDPI 2023-09-12 /pmc/articles/PMC10531748/ /pubmed/37762863 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jcm12185922 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Barsties v. Latoszek, Ben
Jansen, Viktoria
Watts, Christopher R.
Hetjens, Svetlana
The Impact of Protective Face Coverings on Acoustic Markers in Voice: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
title The Impact of Protective Face Coverings on Acoustic Markers in Voice: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
title_full The Impact of Protective Face Coverings on Acoustic Markers in Voice: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
title_fullStr The Impact of Protective Face Coverings on Acoustic Markers in Voice: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
title_full_unstemmed The Impact of Protective Face Coverings on Acoustic Markers in Voice: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
title_short The Impact of Protective Face Coverings on Acoustic Markers in Voice: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
title_sort impact of protective face coverings on acoustic markers in voice: a systematic review and meta-analysis
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10531748/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37762863
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jcm12185922
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