Development and Validation of a Questionnaire to Assess the Effect of Vestibular Rehabilitation Therapy

Vestibular rehabilitation therapy (VRT) is an effective treatment for individuals experiencing imbalance and dizziness, helps to improve the quality of life. Lack of culturally valid questionnaires to assess the outcome from VRT necessitates the development of reliable and culturally valid questionnaire to measure the outcomes of VRT. Hence, the current study aimed to develop a culturally valid and reliable questionnaire for measuring the outcome of VRT in Indian population and to translate it into Malayalam and Kannada. This cross-sectional study was conducted at the department of Audiology and Speech Language Pathology of a tertiary care hospital. The questionnaire was constructed based on thorough literature search of existing questionnaires related to dizziness and vestibular disorders in relevant to the Indian context. Content validity was assessed by expert reviewers using a rating scale, and the questionnaire was translated into two south Indian languages (Malayalam and Kannada). The questionnaire was then administered on 12 patients undergoing VRT to assess its initial validation. The questionnaire was named as 'Effect of Vestibular Rehabilitation Therapy Questionnaire (EVRT-Q)', consisted of 25 questions divided into three domains: symptom, function, and emotion. The questionnaire demonstrated good content validity with a Content Validity Index greater than 0.8 for each question in all domains. The questionnaire possesses a high internal consistency when measured using Cronbach's alpha. Hence, the EVRT-Q appears to be a valid and reliable tool to assess the outcome from VRT in Indian population.