Reliability and validity of The Danish pediatric voice handicap index

Background: The pediatric voice handicap index (pVHI) questionnaire was developed in 2006 to provide parental information regarding the impact of a voice disorder on their child's life.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to make a Danish version of the original American pVHI and to validate the Danish pVHI by evaluating its internal consistency and reliability.

Materials and methods: The original version of the pVHI was translated into Danish. Nineteen parents of dysphonic children, diagnosed in a tertiary otolaryngology hospital department, and 43 parents of children without known voice disorder (control group) completed the questionnaire. The internal consistency, content validity including comparisons of the scores in the two groups and the test-retest reliability were assessed through statistical analysis.

Results: The total pVHI scores significantly differed between the group of parents with dysphonic children and the group of parents with children without known voice disorder (p < 0.001). The internal consistency showed an excellent consistency (Chronbach's α > 0.9) of the three subdomains score and the total pVHI score. The test-re-test reliability of the total pVHI score was "strong" with a Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.97.

Conclusions and significance: The Danish pVHI is a valid and reliable instrument to assess the parents' perception of the impact of a voice disorder on a child's physical, social and emotional well-being.