Abuso y mal uso vocal en los docentes de educación básica de la Escuela Fiscal Básica Panamá y la Unidad Educativa Leoncio Cordero Jaramillo de la ciudad de Cuenca 2023-2024

Background: The voice is the main means of communication for teachers in the classroom. However, when teaching classes, they often use inappropriate behaviors, such as raising the tone of their voice, shouting, clearing their throat, using if for long hours without breaks, among others. It is important that they avoid these behaviors that alter the health of their voice, affecting their communication, physical well-being, and social, personal, family, emotional and work relationships. Objective: Determine vocal misuse and abuse in basic education teachers of the Panama Basic Fiscal school and the Leoncio Cordero Jaramillo Educational Unit of the city of Cuenca in the period 2023-2024. Methods: A cross-sectional quantitative descriptive study was carried out with a sample of 61 teachers where vocal habits were analyzed through the questionnaire “Occupational and personal factors that affect the phonatory system” and tabulated using the SPSS version 25 program. Results: Of the 61 respondents, the women with the highest percentage were the age groups 31-40 and 41-50 years old with 29.5% while the age group of men were 51-60 years old or older with 13.1%. There were risk behaviors, such as increasing their voice by 44.3% and sharpening it by 34.4% when they had between 31 to 40 students, and increasing their voice by 42.6% and sharpening it by 24.6% when they had between 21 and 30 students, Conclusion: Teachers engage in behaviors that reflect vocal abuse and misuse, such as smoking, drinking alcohol, coffee, tea, aggravating the tone