Cross-cultural adaptation of the Nijmegen cochlear implant questionnaire into Turkish language: validity, reliability and effects of demographic variables

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the Nijmegen Cochlear Implant Questionnaire (Tr-NCIQ) and reveal the demographic factors contributing to the outcomes.

Methods

A group of 118 cochlear implant users aged between 18 and 70 years filled the Tr-NCIQ and the Turkish Hearing Handicapped Inventory for Adults (the Tr-HHI-Adult) via electronic survey. Cross-cultural adaptation of the Tr-NCIQ was performed. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire were evaluated utilizing internal consistency coefficient, split-half method, and predictive validity.

Results

The overall Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the scale was 0.91, and the Spearman-Brown coefficient was 0.91. A moderately significant and negative correlation was present between the basic sound perception, speech production, self-esteem, activity, and social interactions subdomain scores and the HHI-Adult scores. Patients with post-lingual onset of hearing loss had significantly better results than those with pre-lingual onset, in the advanced sound perception subdomain. In addition, bilateral cochlear implant users had better results than the unilateral and bimodal users in the speech production subdomain and then the bimodal users in the self-esteem subdomain. There was no effect of age, duration of implant use, age at implantation, and the daily usage of cochlear implant (CI) on the quality-of-life outcomes.

Conclusion

The Tr-NCIQ is a reliable and valid tool to evaluate the subjective quality of life in CI users. In addition, as a standardized instrument, it can be easily self-administered both in clinical practice and for research purposes.