The Voice Disability Coping Questionnaire

Factor Analysis of the Persian Version of the Voice Disability Coping Questionnaire Publication date: Available online 16 July 2019 Source: Journal of Voice Author(s): Farzaneh Salehimanesh, Majid Soltani, Maryam Dastoorpoor, Negin Moradi Abstract Introduction Voice disorders can affect the quality of life and coping mechanisms and also coping mechanisms can affect the way in which patients deal with their voice problems. People with voice disorders need to use coping strategies to deal with the problems caused by their voice disorder. The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties and cultural adaptation of the Voice Disability Coping Questionnaire in the Iranian population. Methods The translation and cross-cultural adaptation procedures were performed according to the basic rules and instructions set by the International Quality of Life Assessment Project. Two hundred and forty-eight adults (218 patients with voice disorder and 30 healthy controls) were participated in the study. Face and content validity, clinical validity, and construct validity of the questionnaire were investigated by modern psychometric methods. Results Quantitative methods were used to measure content validity and all items were detected applicable. This means that the final version was clear and easy to answer. Clinical validity shows that the Persian version of VDCQ can distinguish between patients and healthy controls (P < 0.001). The construct validity of the VDCQ was tested in a cross-sectional study. The questionnaire was analyzed by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Investigation of initial communality and after extraction of factors by Varimax rotation method showed that the share of items for all items in the questionnaire except item 12, is higher than 0.5. Therefore, item 12 should be removed from the questionnaire (Table 3). Based on the confirmatory factor analysis model, items 2 and 10, whose factor load were less than 0.4, were excluded from the questionnaire (Fig. 1). For reliability the Cronbach's alpha coefficient and ICC were obtained as 0.82 and 0.99, respectively. The results of studying the role of items in the reliability of the VDCQ showed that all items increase internal consistency. Conclusion Based on modern statistical analysis conducted in this study, the original 15 item questionnaire was reduced to 12 item. The 12 item questionnaire is a valid and reliable tool for quantifying coping strategies in people with voice disorder.