RESUMO
BACKGROUND: The Sydney Swallow Questionnaire (SSQ) is a self-report inventory assessing subjective symptoms of oropharyngeal dysphagia with strong content, construct, discriminant, and predictive validity and test-retest reliability in a range of patient populations. OBJECTIVE: The main aim of this work was to assess the validity and reliability of the German version of the SSQ (SSQ-G). MATERIALS AND METHODS: In a cross-validation study, 48 adult German-speaking patients (12 women, 36 men) with neurogenic (nâ¯= 16), structural (nâ¯= 16), and functional (nâ¯= 16) oropharyngeal dysphagia were assessed with the SSQG and the MD Anderson Dysphagia Inventory (MDADI). Cronbach's α was applied to assess the reliability. Criteria and construct validity were investigated using the Spearman correlation coefficient. RESULTS: With Cronbach's αâ¯= 0.94, the internal consistency of the SSQG was excellent. The SSQG questions 1 and 17 showed a moderately significant and highly significant correlation coefficient of -0.43 and -0.45, respectively, with MDADI question 1 (pâ¯<â¯0.5, pâ¯<â¯0.001). Between questions 8, 11, and 12 of the SSQG and questions 7, 13, and 10 of the MDADI, coefficients of -0.48 to -0.55 showed a moderate to strong highly significant correlation (pâ¯<â¯0.001). Thus, the reliability and criterion and construct validity were statistically confirmed. CONCLUSION: The German version of the SSQ (SSQ-G) allows a reliable and valid assessment of functional swallowing difficulties. In combination with questionnaires on symptom-specific quality of life, such as the MDADI, a more differentiated clinical analysis of swallowing problems is thus possible.