Development and validation of the voice handicap index-10.
OBJECTIVE
The objective was to develop an abbreviated voice handicap assessment instrument and compare it with the Voice Handicap Index (VHI).


METHODS
Item analysis of the VHI in individuals without voice disorders and patients with voice disorders and creation and validation of the abbreviated VHI.


METHODS
Clinical consensus review of the VHI items was held to prioritize the clinical value of each of the VHI items (30 items in all). Item analysis of the VHI was performed using the VHI responses of 100 patients with voice problems and 159 control subjects. The 10 most robust VHI items were selected using the item analysis and clinical consensus results to form the Voice Handicap Index-10 (VHI-10). Statistical analysis comparing the validity of the VHI-10 with the VHI was performed with 819 patients representing a wide spectrum of voice disorders.


RESULTS
Statistical analysis of the VHI and VHI-10 scores from the study group showed no statistically significant differences between the VHI and the VHI-10. Irrespective of diagnosis, the correlation between the VHI and the VHI-10 was greater than .90 (P = .01). The ratios of the VHI-10 to VHI scores for a variety of voice disorder categories were analyzed and found to be consistently greater than the expected value (33%). This suggests that the VHI-10 may be a more robust instrument than the VHI.


CONCLUSIONS
The VHI-10 is a powerful representation of the VHI that takes less time for the patient to complete without loss of validity. Thus, the VHI-10 can replace the VHI as an instrument to quantify patients' perception of their voice handicap.
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University of Pittsburgh Voice Center, PA, USA. rosenca@upmc.edu
Clark A
CA
Rosen
Annie S
AS
Lee
Jamie
J
Osborne
Thomas
T
Zullo
Thomas
T
Murry
D004185:Disability Evaluation; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D012016:Reference Values; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012803:Sick Role; D014832:Voice Disorders / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology; D014833:Voice Quality