Similarities and differences across patient completed voice case history questionnaires - A scoping review

Case history assessments are ubiquitously performed across various health professions for diagnostic purposes. Questionnaires are considered a valuable tool within this process. There is currently no standardized tool available to collect such information in the assessment of voice disorders. Conflicting advice from peak bodies and research evidence makes the process heterogenous, haphazard and difficult to compare findings.

To systematically identify existing case history questionnaires available for general clinical practice and provide synthesis and analysis of the questions within.

A scoping review was conducted across published and unpublished literature using the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews framework. The broad search included research papers within six electronic databases, textbooks, online publishing sites, voice clinic websites and peak body websites. Search criteria were uniformly applied. Descriptive analysis and content analysis was conducted. At each stage, transparency and replicability was achieved through an independent review process.

Identified voice case history questionnaires were few (n = 23) with 80% from unpublished sources. A total of 581 unique questions were identified. No single question was common across all 23 questionnaires. The most frequently asked questions, excluding demographics, included medicines taken (n = 21), smoking (n = 20) and alcohol (n = 19). These questions were not reflected in the highest frequency categories: Health Status/Medical Conditions/Reports (n = 200), Vocal Symptoms (n = 88), Voice Use (n = 51) despite these categories representing 58% of all questions asked. Within the highest frequency category, the subcategory of Systemic Diseases was the highest, representing 19% of all questions within the category.

This study illuminates the similarities yet many differences that exist across identified voice case history questionnaires in terms of number of questions, number of categories, preference for question-type and structure. It demonstrates the need for standardization of a voice case history questionnaire which would potentially enable more accurate diagnosis and data comparison between voice clinics to aid future research.