Assessment of quality of life in individuals with dysphagia: a questionnaire in Marathi

Abstract

The study aimed at developing a questionnaire for assessing quality of life in individuals with dysphagia. The study was carried out in two phases; fi rst phase included preparation of a questionnaire in English which was later translated to Marathi using forward and backward translation. In the second phase, the developed questionnaire was administered on thirty- five adults with dysphagia. Item analysis was performed on scores obtained for each statement of the questionnaire by individuals with dysphagia. Eight items required deletion after inter-item correlation leaving 47 statements in the fi nal questionnaire, Dysphagia Quality of Life Questionnaire in Marathi (D-QOL-QM), which were divided into four sections; functional, eating, psychosocial and, physical section. Overall cronbach's alpha coe cient was very high (a=0.93) which shows that the questionnaire has good reliablity. Results on Pearson's correlation showed good internal consistency and highly signi cant moderate to high correlation for sections of questionnaire. This study provides a reliable clinical tool, D-QOL-QM, for assessing impact of dysphagia on individual's life in Indian scenario.