Adaptation and Validation of the Voice-Related Quality of Life Measure into Kannada

Abstract

Earlier researchers have developed various objective tools to document the impact of dysphonia on the patient's daily living and quality of life. Of all these available tools, Voice Related Quality of Life (V-RQOL) is one of the essential self-reported tools to document the quality of life related to voice. Thus, developing the Kannada version of V-RQOL can be a useful tool in the clinical assessment of Kannada-speaking dysphonic patients. To translate the V-RQOL into Kannada and to evaluate the psychometric properties and the cut off scores for the Kannada version of the V-RQOL. This investigation deployed a non-randomized, prospective standard group comparison. V-RQOL was translated to Kannada and was administered to 70 patients with voice disorders (42 males and 28 females) with a mean age of 43.2 ± 15.8 years, and 70 age and gender-matched participants with a clinically normal voice. Spearman's correlation coefficient was more than 0.94 indicating a good test-retest reliability. Therefore, the Kannada version of VRQOL had a good level of reproducibility. The test also showed a Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.92, indicating a strong internal consistency of the Kannada version of VRQOL. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve analysis revealed that the cut off score for the Kannada version of VRQOL was 93.75 indicating that Kannada version of VRQOL had an excellent construct validity. The present study findings revealed that the Kannada version of VRQOL is a reliable, valid and sensitive self-assessment tool to document the impact of voice problems on the patient's quality of life.