Prevalence of functional dysphonia in elementary school teachers in Colombia

Abstract

Pedagogical work is an action that is carried out daily in the classrooms and for this the communication mechanism is the voice. However, excessive use of the voice can produce certain disorders that prevent the normal execution of phonetics and phonology, this is called dysfunctional dysphonia. This study consists of a scoping review of the prevalence of functional dysphonia in primary school teachers in the Colombian education sector between 2018 and 2024, following the methodology developed by the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI), structured in several stages: 1) protocol and registration, 2) identification of the research question, 3) databases and eligibility criteria,  4) search strategy, 5) selection of sources, 6) data extraction process, 7) summary of the data and 8) synthesis of the results. Recommendations for the preparation of scoping reviews of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis Protocols - extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR) were also followed. Based on some terms defined by Bustos (2018), Search Strategies identified 178 articles and the final sample consisted of ten studies.  In conclusion, data suggest that teachers will always be at risk of functional dysphonia due to the daily use of their voice in the execution of their school activities and in their work as a social communicator and teacher. In another sense, the reflection on a personal level of each work carried out or researched is exposed.