A Qualitative Study on Experiences of Patients with Esophageal Speech Training after Total Laryngectomy

Background: Patients who had total laryngectomy not only have a pressure from the possible diagnosis of laryngeal cancer, but also suffer from unspeakable misery. To relieve the suffering, some patients choose esophageal speech training. However, most of the current researches focus solely on the results of the training with the negligence of the patients’ mental health and their life experience during the training. A qualitative research is highly sensitive to patients’ subjective feelings, and thus able to capture their subtle emotional changes. Objective: To explore deeply patients’ real experiences of esophageal speech training after total laryngectomy and reveal the public their training experience of the unique and special group. Methods: In May 2018, researchers conducted a two-month field observation on and in-depth interviews with 15 patients who were on esophageal speech training after total laryngectomy in the esophageal speech training room of the Eye and ENT Hospital of Fudan University. The research applied phenomenological research method and Colaizzi Data Analysis. Results: The data analysis indicated four main themes: changes of mindset; showing positive attitudes and behaviors in training; shift in social relations; and arduous training process. Conclusion: The study has the finding that patients on esophageal speech training had negative emotions in the early stage of the training and dissatisfaction with its teaching. The repercussion of the surgery brought them changes of social relations, social bias and prejudice ensued. It is, therefore, urgent and crucial to give the speech trainees psychological counseling in the early stage to improve their qualities of life, to mobilize social support to incentivize their training, to optimize esophageal speech training teaching, and to regulate the management of the esophageal speech training environment.