Voice activity and participation profile in assessing the effects of voice disorders on quality of life: estimation of the validity, reliability and responsiveness of the Finnish version.

AIM: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the validity, reliability and responsiveness of the Finnish version of the Voice Activity and Participation Profile (VAPP), a self-assessment questionnaire to measure psychosocial limitations caused by voice disorders.

METHODS

The study was conducted in Tampere University Hospital in 2004 and 2005. Voice patients (n = 142) with diverse chronic voice pathologies received 3-5 sessions of voice therapy. Controls were known individuals with healthy voices (n = 127). The VAPP form was completed before attending hospital, at the first visit to hospital and before and after voice therapy.

RESULTS

When comparing patients with healthy controls significant differences were found in score means. After brief voice therapy, the VAPP values improved moderately as 60% of patients had effect size of 0.27 or over. Physicians' advice did not improve VAPP scores. The VAPP question profile was regarded as consistent. Cronbach's alpha for the question profile was 0.958 and for the subsections 0.865.

CONCLUSIONS

VAPP appeared to be valid and responsive to the intervention. In test-retest reliability, although intraclass correlation was high (0.905), there was a trend for the second answers to be better than the first. Some proposals are given to improve the practicality of the VAPP form.