Cross-cultural Adaptation and Validation of the Vocal Performance Questionnaire into Kannada

Vocal Performance Questionnaire (VPQ) is a short and convenient tool with one-dimensional consistency to evaluate the vocal performance. Developing the Kannada version of VPQ can be a useful self-assessment clinical tool for evaluating dysphonia symptoms in Kannada-speaking patients. Hence, the objective of the study was to translate the VPQ into Kannada and to evaluate the psychometric properties and the cutoff scores for the Kannada version of the VPQ (VPQ-K).

This investigation deployed a non-randomised, prospective standard group comparison.

VPQ was translated to Kannada and administered to 71 participants (37 males and 34 females) diagnosed with voice disorder with a mean age of 43.94 ± 15.31 years and 71 age and gender-matched participants with a clinically normal voice.

The test-retest reliability of the VPQ-K was measured through Intra class correlation, and the results indicated excellent test-retest reliability. The Internal consistency of VPQ-K was determined using the Split half reliability by calculating the Spearmen-Brown coefficient, and the results revealed that VPQ-K had very strong internal consistency. Results also indicated that the participants in the control group had significantly lower VPQ-K scores compared to the participants in the study groups, indicating that VPQ-K had good construct validity. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve analysis showed a cutoff point of 18.50 for VPQ-K.

As VPQ-K is a quick, easy to fill and low-burden self-assessment tool, VPQ-K can be proposed as a sensitive clinical tool to assess the vocal performance in Kannada-speaking patients with voice disorders and to evaluate the treatment outcome.