Fidelity to the CAPE-V

Auditory-perceptual measurements of voice are among the most common diagnostic tools used during a voice evaluation and are considered a gold standard for documenting voice disorders. One tool used to obtain auditory-perceptual measurements of the voice is the Consensus Auditory Perceptual Evaluation of Voice, or the CAPE-V (Kempster et al., 2009). The main goal of this pilot study was to examine the fidelity of clinicians to the CAPE-V protocol; that is, how the CAPE-V is being used and the extent to which users deviate from the published procedure. Data were collected by surveying a small group (N=17) of speech-language pathologists who regularly evaluate and treat patients with voice disorders. Survey results confirmed that few of the sampled speech-language pathologists follow exactly the standardized instructions for the CAPE-V. Results from this pilot project may be used to develop a full-scale, national survey study regarding fidelity to the CAPE-V.