development and psychometric validation of a new tinnitus questionnaire for clinical use

Background and aim: self-administered questionnaires are clinically important to document how tinnitus affects the daily life of patients. in this regard, there is a need to have an alternative questionnaire that covers relevant aspects of tinnitus and related symptoms. the present study aimed to develop and validate a new tinnitus questionnaire known as tinnitus handicap questionnaire or borang evaluasi soal selidik tinitus (best) in malay version. methods: the present study had two consecutive phases. in phase 1 of study, best questionnaire was initially developed in english and underwent forward and backward translation processes. following relevant amendments, the final version of best (malay version) was ready for subsequent tasks. it consists of 25 items categorized under 3m domain (mind, main and mental). in phase 2, 65 patients with tinnitus were recruited for determining the validity and reliability of best. results: content validity index (cvi) of best ranged from 0.71-1.00. endorsement rates of best were acceptable (<80%) for the majority of items. best was found to have good reliability as revealed by item-total correlation (0.22-0.84), cronbach’s alpha (0.62-0.95), split half reliability (0.92) and correlation between domains (r=0.62-0.96). it was correlated with malay version of depression anxiety stress scales (bm dass-21) (p<0.05) but not with tinnitus audiometry (p>0.05) implying good construct validity. conclusion: the best questionnaire has been proven valid and reliable to be used clinically, particularly among malay-speaking population. nevertheless, future studies are welcome to fur-ther support the findings obtained from the present study.