Relevance of psychosocial factors in speech rehabilitation after laryngectomy

Often it is assumed that psychosocial and sociodemographic factors cause the success of voice rehabilitation after laryngectomy. Aim of this study was to analyze the association between these parameters. Based on tumor registries of six ENT-clinics all patients were surveyed, who were laryngectomized in the years before (N = 190). Success of voice rehabilitation has been assessed as speech intelligibility measured with the postlaryngectomy-telephone-intelligibility-test. For the assessment of the psychosocial parameters validated and standardized instruments were used if possible. Statistical analysis was done by multiple logistic regression analysis. Low speech intelligibility is associated with reduced conversations (OR 0.970) and social activity (OR 1.049). Patients are more likely to talk with esophageal voice when their motivation for learning the new voice was high (OR 7.835) and when they assessed their speech therapist as important for their motivation (OR 4.794). The risk to communicate merely by whispering is higher when patients live together with a partner (OR 5.293), when they talk seldomly (OR 1.017) and when they are not very active in social contexts (OR 0.966). Psychosocial factors can only partly explain how voice rehabilitation after laryngectomy becomes a success. Speech intelligibility is associated with active communication behaviour, whereas the use of an esophageal voice is correlated with motivation. It seems that the gaining of tracheoesophageal puncture voice is independent of psychosocial factors.