Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of nasal obstruction symptom evaluation questionnaire in Slovenian language

Nasal obstruction is highly subjective perception with numerous efforts being made towards objective measuring. Many instruments in quality of life studies encompass subjective symptom of nasal obstruction, but only NOSE has been properly validated and is easy to use in every day practice.

Multicenter prospective instrument validation and cross-cultural adaptation cohort study was conducted on patients with deviated nasal septum, with or without inferior turbinate hypertrophy, to develop the Slovenian version of NOSE questionnaire. A cross-cultural adaptation of the original questionnaire was done in five steps, producing Slovenian NOSE-si, used on a pilot group to confirm the quality of adapted tools and, afterwards, on the main study and control group. Symptoms were lasting for more than 12 months and all had an indication for septal surgery. A control group was selected from a pool of healthy subjects, self-assessed as having no rhinological complaints.

NOSE-si was used on 116 patients (58 from the study group vs. 58 from the control group). High degree of internal consistency - Cronbach's a 0.971 and reliability after retesting - Goodman-Kruskal gamma coefficient 0.984 was proven. Responsiveness was confirmed in the surgery subgroup with standardized response mean (SRM) 2.76 (p<0.001).

The study produced a valid Slovenian version of NOSE questionnaire through rigorous and well defined five-phase effort to maintain scientifically comparable QoL instrument, and may be used by clinicians and researchers.