80 Chapter 4 Discussion PROMs are essential for the assessment of subjective complaints and disability and are increasingly utilised. Still, in a general ENT practice, the use of otologic questionnaires is limited and it varies strongly between countries and clinics to which extent disease- or complaint-specific questionnaires are used. The OQUA is a newly developed generic otologic questionnaire, designed to measure the severity of ear complaints, the impact of these complaints on daily life and to assess the effectiveness of an intervention from a patients’ perspective. It could be useful to avoid all kinds of questionnaires in a single practise and to compare outcomes in a larger group. In this study, we analysed the validity of the OQUA. Good validity, reliability and responsiveness were confirmed. The validated version of the OQUA consists of 34 items and was slightly changed in its original sequence for practical reasons. It now has a scoring manual and is ready for broader use. This study shows that the OQUA is set for implementation as standard care in ENT practise in an increasing number of countries. Strength and weakness of the study The design of the OQUA is based on the COSMIN guidelines.8 All required steps for the development of new instruments were taken, and the OQUA was extensively field-tested with sufficient number of patients. The study population represented an Figure 3: Example of graphical representation of the OQUA impact pre: 35 impact post: 22
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