• Uzma Qayyum, Nazia Mumtaz, and Ghulam Saqulain.
• Uzma Qayyum, MS (SLP) Speech Language Pathologist, Department of Speech Language Pathology, Riphah International University, Lahore, Pakistan.
• Pak J Med Sci. 2023 Sep 1; 39 (5): 143414391434-1439.

Background & ObjectivesVH (Vocal health) is the need of the hour. VH of parents of children with hearing assistive devices (HAD) reveals a literature gap, during the habilitation process of their children. To explore the vocal health of parents of children with hearing assistive devices.MethodsThis cross-sectional study was conducted at Riphah International University from September to December 2021. Study recruited N=384 parents of Hearing Impaired children (HIC) using HAD for at least two years, of both genders and aged 2-9 years using convenience sampling. Voice-related quality of life (V-RQOL), and vocal health Index (VHI) -10 were used for data collection. Data was analyzed on SPSS Version 25. Descriptive statistics, Anova and t-test were utilized to see difference between means of groups. P<0.05 shows significant-results.ResultsParents of children using hearing assistive devices had excellent V-RQOL score in 350(91.14%) parents. There was no significant difference in V=RQOL as regards type of hearing assistive device use (p=0.102), laterality of device use (p=0.918) and degree of hearing loss (p=0.143). However, type of hearing loss revealed significant difference (p=0.021). Also VHI score revealed significantly (p=0.008) lower means in parents of children with cochlear implants.ConclusionCurrent study concludes that the parents raising hearing impaired children with hearing assistive devices, possess good vocal health as determined by VHI and V-RQOL scores with only a very small number of parents reporting vocal symptoms.Copyright: © Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences.

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