Validation of Newcastle Laryngeal Hypersensitivity Questionnaire (LHQ-Br) in Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

Objective: To analyze the validity of the Newcastle Laryngeal Hypersensitivity Questionnaire (LHQ-Br) in Brazilian Portuguese.

Methods: The present study sample consisted of 89 individuals from the laryngeal hypersensitivity group and 41 individuals from the healthy group. The Newcastle Laryngeal Hypersensitivity Questionnaire's validation process for Brazilian Portuguese was composed of five stages: construct validity, reliability of internal consistency, and reliability regarding reproducibility, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. The software SPSS 25.0 was used. A significance level of 5% was considered statistically significant.

Results: In construct validation, it was observed that the instrument was unifactorial; however, it was necessary to exclude two items with a low commonality that did not fit the model. The final instrument consisted of 12 items, and a factor called total, which explained 70.55% of the variance. In the internal consistency analysis, Cronbach's alpha was 0.962. The reproducibility had an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was 0.949. In terms of convergent validity, there was a negative correlation between the total domain of the LHQ-Br and the total Cough Severity Index translated and adapted for the Brazilian Portuguese (P = 0.001) and total Voice Handicap Index - 10 (P < 0.001). Discriminant validity showed that ten items and the total factor differentiated healthy group individuals from those in the laryngeal hypersensitivity group.

Conclusion: The 12-item LHQ-Br is valid and reliable for measuring the self-perception of laryngeal sensation associated with Brazilian patients with laryngeal hypersensitivity syndrome.

Keywords: Laryngeal hypersensitivity syndrome; Validation studies; Voice.