The Norwegian Voice Handicap Index (VHI-N) patient scores are dependent on voice-related disease group

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine to what extent the Voice Handicap Index-Norwegian (VHI-N) is scored depending on specific laryngological disease. In a multi-center study, 126 healthy subjects and 355 patients with different voice-related diseases answered the VHI-N. The VHI-N scores showed high Cronbach's alpha. Analyses of variance were performed with VHI-N dependent and specific voice-related disease as independent variable, and showed highly significant dependence by group allocation (F(7,461) = 28.0; p < 0.001). When studying post hoc analyses secondary to this ANOVA analysis, we have shown that the control group scored lower than the entire patient groups (all p < 0.001) except the dysplasia group. Aphonic patients scored higher than all the other groups (all p < 0.001) except those with spasmodic dysphonia. The cancer patient group furthermore scored lower than patient groups with recurrent palsy, dysfunctional disease or spasmodic dysphonia (all p < 0.001). In addition, patients with recurrent palsy scored higher than patients with degenerative/inflammatory disease (p < 0.001). No influences of patient age, gender, or smoking were observed in the VHI-N scores. The VHI-N is a psychometrically well-functioning instrument, also at disease-specific levels and discriminates well between health and voice diseases, as well as between different voice-related diseases. The VHI-N may be recommended to be used when monitoring voice-related disease treatment.