Applicability of the Arabic version of Vocal Tract Discomfort Scale (VTDS) with student singers as professional voice users

Aim: This pilot study aimed to evaluate the internal consistency, convergent construct validity and criterion validity of Arabic version of the Vocal Tract Discomfort Scale (VTDS), and to investigate the correlation between the scores of the VTDS, the VHI and the acoustic measures of fundamental frequency (F0), shimmer, jitter and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Methodology: A cross-sectional study where 97 participants participated (47 males and 50 females) (mean age 20.5 ± 2.1 years) (31 student singers and 66 other non-professional voice user students). Participants were without self-perceived voice disorders who completed the VTDS-Arab scale and the Voice Handicap Index (VHI-Arab), and recorded a vocal sample of/a:/at a comfortable level. Results: A positive internal consistency that signifies reliability was confirmed by Cronbach’s α =.884 and 0.874 for the VTDS-Arab frequency and severity subscales, respectively. A moderate positive correlation was found between the VTDS-Arab (frequency, severity, total) and the VHI-Arab total where values of Pearson’s correlation coefficient were r= 0.459, 0.430 and 0.451, respectively. Weak correlations were found between all of the acoustic measures and the scores of the VTDS-Arab and VHI-Arab (total and subscales). The area under curve for the VTDS was AUC= 0.824, 0.804 and 0.817 for the VTDS frequency, VTDS severity and VTDS total, respectively. Conclusions: The VTDS-Arab is a valid and reliable tool in measuring vocal tract sensations and predicting the perception of vocal handicap in student singers and can be used to predict the vocal load among professional voice users.