Voice Care Knowledge in the Context of Persian Voice Therapists

INTRODUCTION: Voice care knowledge is a basic element of voice hygiene that is of paramount importance in patients with voice disorders. A questionnaire was developed to measure voice care knowledge in patients with voice disorders. In this study, the agreement of voice clinicians on 28 items of the Persian translation of voice care knowledge questionnaire (P-VCKQ) was performed. The agreement between the voice disorder group (VDG) and expert clinicians, as well as between the vocally healthy group (VHG) and expert clinicians, was investigated.

METHODS: After translation to Persian, ten expert clinicians rated each item as positively affects voice, negatively affects voice, or does not affect on a 100 mm line. Thirty patients in VDG and 30 individuals in VHG constituted the sample of this research. Also, agreement values of VHG with the expert clinician on the items of the P-VCKQ and the agreement values of VDG with the expert clinician on the items of the P-VCKQ were calculated.

RESULTS: Persian expert clinicians had 67% total agreement on the items of P-VCKQ. VHG had 86% agreement, and VDG had 78% agreement with the clinician consensus. The expert clinicians of the UK and Iran showed a significant difference in agreement values on the items of this scale (P < 0.001). VDG had fewer values of agreement than VHG.

CONCLUSION: The Persian voice therapists had moderate agreements on statements of voice care knowledge. Also, the agreement of VDG and VHG on statements was noticeably different, with higher agreement of knowledge among VHG. Investigating the agreement of otolaryngologists and measuring reliability are highly recommended.