Cross-cultural Adaptation and Validation of the Greek Voice Handicap Index-10 (GVHI-10) With Additional Receiver...

The use of subjective evaluation tools are proven useful and of high clinical value in the case of voice disordered population. For that type of evaluation, self-assessment questionnaires about the severity of the voice like Voice Handicap Index-30 (VHI-30) have been developed. The VHI-30 is the most studied tool which includes psychometrically robustness while guiding physician's therapeutic decision making. Additionally, a valid abbreviated version of VHI-30 was developed for the first time in the Greek Language which is named as Greek Voice Handicap Index-10 (GVHI-10). Consequently, the aim of our study was to validate the proposed version of the VHI-10.

Ninety nondysphonic individuals and 90 dysphonic patients were classified by Otolaryngologists and Speech Language Pathologists. The study's subjects were evaluated with endoscopy and stroboscopy. Also, they were administrated the GVHI-30 and the translated version of the Voice Evaluation Template (VEF). The GVHI-10 was extracted by the Greek version of VHI-30.

The group with voice disorders exhibited higher statistical significance in all GVHI-10 scores compared to those of the control group. The GVHI-10 showed a high internal consistency (Cronbach's a = 0.915 and split-half reliability coefficient equal to 0.86), good sensitivity compared to Greek VHI-30 (r = 0.764, P = 0.000) and intraclass correlation. A total cut-off point equal to 6.50 (AUC: 0.964; P < 0.001) was also calculated.

The proposed version of GVHI-10 distinguished the perceived levels of voice between dysphonic and nondysphonic groups and between different voice disordered populations. The GVHI-10 is shown to be clinically valid and sensitive exhibiting high reliability.