Validation of the Danish National Tympanostomy Tube Insertion Questionnaires.

INTRODUCTION

The objective of the present study was to validate two questionnaires (the Danish National Tympanostomy Tube Insertion Questionnaires (DANTIQ)) intended for use by the DØNHO database in the investigation of the effect of tympanic tube (TT) insertion on ear-related symptoms and the adherence of ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialists in Danish private practice to the Danish National Clinical Guideline on treatment of otitis media (OM) with TT insertion using electronic patient-reported outcome (ePRO) data.

METHODS

The content validity of the questionnaires was assessed through discussion in a group of four active ENT specialists. Face and content validity analyses were conducted using data from semi-structured, single-person interviews with nine subjects. Reliability analysis was conducted as a three-day test/re-test study involving two groups of 117 individuals receiving and answering the same questionnaire twice.

RESULTS

The overall face validity of both questionnaires was satisfactory. The reliability of the answers for both questionnaires was considered acceptable with a proportion of agreement ranging from 1.00 to 0.77. The correlation between first and second scores of the total number of symptoms reported in the test/re-test setup was acceptable with results ranging from 0.93 to 0.84.

CONCLUSIONS

The DANTIQ are valid and reliable for measuring ear-related symptoms in children with OM undergoing TT insertion and for investigating Danish private ENT specialists' adherence to guidelines concerning TT insertion by use of ePRO data.

FUNDING: non.

TRIAL REGISTRATION: not relevant.