Cross-Cultural Adaptation and Psychometric Properties of Tinnitus Functional Index for Thai Patients

Abstract

OBJECTIVE This study aims to cross-culturally translate the Tinnitus Functional Index (TFI) questionnaire into Thai, and to determine the psychometric properties of Thai version (TFI-Th). METHODS TFI was translated into a Thai version (TFI-Th) using a forward - backward translation procedure. All participants completed the following questionnaires in random order: TFI-Th, Visual analog scales, Tinnitus Handicap Inventory Thai Version (THI-T), and Thai Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scales (Thai HADS). RESULTS The content validity index (CVI) of the TFI-Th was high. The TFI-Th showed adequate convergent and divergent validity. The correlation between TFI-Th and other measurements were calculated and showed a high correlation with THI-T (r = 0.82), a moderate-to-high correlations with each items of VAS (r = 0.66-0.86), and a moderate correlation with depression (r = 0.58) and anxiety (r = 0.62) of Thai HADS. The internal consistency reliability of TFI-Th was excellent (μ = 0.97). CONCLUSIONS The results of the present study revealed that the cross-cultural TFI-Th had similar reliability and validity to the original TFI and suitable for the evaluation of Thai tinnitus patients. KEYWORDS tinnitus, Thai Tinnitus Functional Index, psychometric properties, reliability