Relationship Between Sleep Quality and Stress with Voice Functioning among College Professors: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Background: Sleeping is the most critical stage in the psychological and somatic recovery process. Sleep deficiency can lead to changes in the breath pattern that might contribute to the appearance and development of voice disorders. Sleep can also compromise the individual's communicative competence. Work-related stress is a risk factor for serious health and mental issues, including voice and sleep disorders. Recovery from stress is fundamental in order to preserve health, wellbeing, and work performance. No systematic review of the literature or meta-analysis concerning this relationship has been performed yet.

Objective: To define the association of voice disorders with sleep quality and stress among teachers.

Methods: A systematic review of literature and meta-analysis were performed. Three computerized databases were used to characterize the relationship between voice disorders among teachers with sleep quality and stress. Information such as year of publication, study population, sample size, stress/sleep exposure, voice outcome, and prevalence were extracted from each paper. All the included articles were measured in terms of their methodological quality.

Results: In total, 10 publications met the criteria for inclusion. The point prevalence of voice disorders ranged widely for both sleep quality (12% to 81%), and for stress (17% to 81%). Teachers who reported stress at work were more likely to report voice disorders. Additionally, teachers who reported having slept more than 6 hours per day were less likely to report a voice disorder.

Conclusion: This study provides evidence about the relationship between sleep quality and work-related stress with voice functioning. Although, included studies had low quality and the number of studies was low, our results suggest that the increased occurrence of voice disorders among teachers with high stress and work and less than 6 hours/day of sleep. Future investigation should aim to identify how sleep quality and stress interact in relation to voice functioning.