Development of comprehensive swallowing-voice assessment scale and its reliability and validity test

YU Qinqin; HOU Ran; LIU Yan

doi:10.12102/j.issn.1009-6493.2025.02.012

Abstract：Objective:To develop comprehensive swallowing-voice assessment scale and to test its reliability and validity.Methods:Based on the theory of unpleasant symptoms,the preliminary draft of comprehensive swallowing-voice assessment scale was formed by literature review,semi-structured interview and Delphi expert inquiry.A total of 166 patients in from 2 tertiary grade A hospitals in Taiyuan were conveniently selected as survey subjects for project analysis and reliability and validity testing from October to December 2023.Results:The comprehensive swallowing-voice assessment scale was developed,which included 3 dimensions(swallowing function,synergistic effect of swallowing and voice,voice function)and 24 items.Questionnaire response rates of 2 rounds of expert inquiry resulted were 93.8%and 100.0%,respectively.The expert authority coefficients were 0.934 and 0.903,respectively.And the Kendall's a coefficients were 0.196 and 0.347,respectively(both P<0.001).The scale-content validity index was 0.875,and the item-level content validity index were from 0.830 to 1.000.Exploratory factor analysis extracted 3 common factors with a cumulative variance contribution rate of 62.600%.The Pearson correlation coefficient of the scores between each dimension of the scale were from 0.425 to 0.492,and the Pearson correlation coefficient between the scones of each dimension and the total sores of the scale were from 0.720 to 0.892.The criterion-relatedvalidity of the scale was 0.469(P<0.01).The Cronbach's a coefficient of the overall scale was 0.921,and the split-half reliability was 0.884.Conclusions:The comprehensive comprehensive swallowing-voice assessment scale is scientific and practical,it can be used as the screening tool for swallowing disorders.