| Summary: | Objective - This research aimed to evaluate the content of the Social Participation Restrictions Questionnaire (SPaRQ) in terms of its relevance, clarity, comprehensiveness, acceptability to adults with hearing loss, and responsiveness.
Design - Cognitive interviews and a subject matter expert survey were conducted. The interview data were analysed using thematic analysis and a taxonomy of questionnaire clarity problems. Descriptive statistics were calculated for the survey data.
Study sample - Fourteen adults with hearing loss participated in the cognitive interviews. Twenty clinicians and academics completed the subject matter expert survey.
Results - The majority of the SPaRQ content was found to be relevant, clear, comprehensive, and acceptable. However, an important clarity problem was identified: many adults with hearing loss struggled to switch from answering positively-worded items (e.g. ‘I can attend social gatherings’) to answering negatively-worded items (e.g. ‘I feel isolated’). Several subject matter experts found responsiveness difficult to assess. The SPaRQ was amended where necessary.
Conclusions - Few hearing-specific questionnaires have undergone content evaluation. This study highlights the value of content evaluation as a means of identifying important flaws and improving the quality of a measure. The next stage of this research is a psychometric evaluation of the measure.
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