Secondary school teacher and madrasha teachers’ knowledge & attitude towards puberphonia : a survey study

Abstract

Puberphonia is a voice disorder defined as the persistence of a high-pitched voice beyond the age at which voice change is expected to have occurred. The aim of this study was to explore secondary school teacher and madrasha teachers’ knowledge & attitude towards puberphonia. This is a quantitative type of cross sectional survey study where 196 samples were assigned purposively from different school and madrasha. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to determine knowledge and attitude of the teacher towards puberphonia. Researcher was used descriptive statistical analysis (SPSS= Statistics package for social science) for the study and scores etc. In this study, where 196 (53.60%) were male and 46.40%. Maximum participants had better knowledge about pubertal changes and 92% said physical change occur, 79.6% claimed mental change occurred at puberty. 88.30% respondents had knowledge about the changes of voice at puberty, 4.60% respondents had no knowledge about this change. Overall knowledge of the teacher about puberphonia was good and their attitude was also good. Maximum respondents 65.8% did not familiar with the name of puberphonia and it is a major finding of this study. Among all respondents maximum 62.2% claimed thin or sharp voice,53.1% claimed broken voice of the symptoms of the puberphonia. 61.70% of the respondents stated person with puberphonia cannot cope with the changed voice during puberty and 30.60% said mental pressure can cause puberphonia. So this study will help us to explore secondary school teacher and madrasha teacher’s knowledge & attitude towards puberphonia. And thus SLT will create awareness and give information about puberphonia and play vital role. It could be an opportunity for the teacher to make their students aware about their voice problem, maintain vocal hygiene and take vocal care for the prevention. Keyword: Puberphonia, Knowledge, Attidude