Influencing Factors of Dropout in Voice Therapy

Abstract

We examined the dropout rate of voice therapy, influencing factors, and characteristics of early dropout cases. The subjects were 195 patients with voice disorders; the average age was 43.6±19.5 years. The presence or absence of voice therapy dropout as the dependent variable and background factors (age, occupation, illness period, number of days from prescription to treatment start, smoking and drinking) and pre-treatment voice evaluation (MPT, G, VHI-10) as independent variables were used to investigate the influencing factors of dropout. In addition, the Z value was calculated using the average value and standard deviation of MPT and VHI-10, and the degree of problem consciousness to voice was categorized into excess group, reasonable group, and decreased group, and the ratio was examined. Furthermore, we examined the factors of early dropout cases with the number of voice therapy sessions as a dependent variable.
The overall dropout rate was 22.6%. In other speech disorders and psychological and mental disorders, occupation and VHI-10 were significantly associated with dropout influencing factors. Age and MPT were significantly related to the number of voice therapy sessions.