Voice activity and participation profile - VAPP administered in two different scales of response

The purpose of this study was to compare two types of rating scales using the Voice Activity and Participation Profile (VAPP) self-assessment questionnaire, in order to check their influence on the results obtained by the same instrument.

Participants were 32 individuals with vocal complaints of both genders, with ages between 15 and 58 years. All subjects answered the vocal self-assessment questionnaire VAPP using with two different rating scales, randomly presented: an 11-point numerical scale (NS) and a 10-cm long (or 100 points) visual analogue scale (VAS). Response time was registered and there was a two-week interval between applications. At the end of the task, participants were asked about the difficulties found in the task to answer each rating scale version, and also to indicate their preference.

The mean VAPP scores were similar in both scales. Differences were found only in partial scores, referring to Activity Limitation and Effects on Emotion, with higher mean score in the numerical scale (p=0.008), however with no clinical impact. The order in which the scales were answered did not affect the results obtained, except for the aspect Effects on Social Communication, which presented lower scores with the visual analogue scale in the group of subjects that answered the numeric scale first (p=0.049). Finally, most participants answered faster to the questionnaire when using the numerical scale (p=0.003).

The scores obtained in the VAPP by the two different rating scales were similar. The questionnaire with the numeric scale takes less time to be answered, which may be useful for clinical practice.