Dysphagia Screening in Brazilian Older Adults with Dementia: Content Development and Validation of a Questionnaire for Caregivers - RaDID-QC

This study aims to develop and validate the content and response processes of a questionnaire intended for caregivers to screen for dysphagia in Brazilian older adults with dementia due to Alzheimer's disease and/or vascular dementia. The instrument items were developed in Brazilian Portuguese language based on the theoretical framework. A committee of speech-language-hearing therapists analyzed the relevance, objectivity, clarity, and understandability of the items with the Delphi method. The content validity index cutoff agreement score for experts' answers to validate each item in the questionnaire was 0.78; in the intraclass correlation coefficient, it was 0.75 for all items. For response process validity evidence, the questionnaire was applied to 30 caregivers of older adults with dementia, who judged the clarity and understandability of the items. Each item was validated when understood by at least 95% of participants. The first version of the instrument had 29 items. After two expert assessments, the last version had 24 items. The intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.85. Only one item needed semantic adjustments in the pre-test. The dysphagia screening instrument applied to caregivers of older adults with dementia was developed with adequate content and response process validity evidence, enabling adjustments in its construct. Future studies will analyze the remaining evidence of validity and reliability.