Persian version of attitudes towards loss of hearing questionnaire

Investigations have shown that the patient’s attitudes toward hearing loss and hearing aids impact hearing aid benefits and its use. In this regard, Saunders and Cienkowski (1996) developed the “attitudes towards loss of hearing questionnaire” to examine some of the psychosocial factors underlying the use of hearing aids. This study has focused on preparing a Persian version of this questionnaire and analyzing its validity and reliability. The original English version of the questionnaire was translated into Persian, and its content and face validities were determined by related experts. The final questionnaire was administered to 100 hearing impaired people (52 males and 48 females) aged 30 to 65 years with the mean (SD) age of 54.54 (12.05) years. The test-retest reliability was assessed in 20 patients. The results of face validity assessment revealed that our questionnaire has a high quality in translation, intelligibility, and cultural compatibility. The mean scores of the content validity ratio and content validity index of this questionnaire was 0.71 and 0.98, respectively. The mean (SD) total score of this questionnaire was 60.46 (10.02) and the mean scores of denial of hearing loss, negative associations, negative coping strategies, manual dexterity and vision and hearing-related esteem were 15.58, 12.10, 20.40, 5.30, and 7.08, respectively. The overall Cronbach α value was 0.798. The test-retest reliability showed good results for the global score (Intraclass correlation = 0.989). Based on the obtained results, the Persian version of the questionnaire possesses satisfactory validity and reliability.