Background: The Swallowing Disturbance Questionnaire contains 15 items covering the common swallowing disturbances that appear in the oral and pharyngeal phases of swallowing.
Aim: To evaluate the validity of an Arabic version of swallowing disturbance questionnaire in the screening of dysphagia resulting from various swallowing disorders to be used as an easily applicable self-reported questionnaire for early detection of dysphagic cases.
Patients and Methods: Forty patients with different etiologies of oropharyngeal dysphagia were asked to fill in the generated Arabic version of Swallowing Disturbance Questionnaire in addition to filling in the Dysphagia Handicap Index to detect the concurrent validity. Flexible endoscopic evaluation of swallowing was carried out to all patients to confirm the presence of dysphagia.
Results: Three questions related to laryngeal symptoms were excluded from the questionnaire as they showed low reliability (p value= 0.177). Cronbach's alpha coefficient of Arabic version of Swallowing Disturbance Questionnaire after removal of the three questions showed good reliability (p value=0.768) and excellent test retest reliability. It showed a good concurrent validity when it was compared against Dysphagia Handicap Index. The two questionnaires had the same findings in the scores of dysphagia within the study groups with higher scores in Post-Stroke cases. Arabic version of Swallowing Disturbance questionnaire had a cut off level of 10 with (55.26%) sensitivity and (50.0%) specificity.
Conclusion: Given the proved validity of the Arabic version of Swallowing Disturbance questionnaire, the current study proposes its use to high-risk patients of swallowing problems.