Swallowing Disturbance Questionnaire for Detecting Dysphagia

Objectives: To assess the accuracy of the swallowing disturbance questionnaire (SDQ) that had originally been designed and validated for detecting swallowing problems among patients with Parkinson's disease and was now applied for identifying patients with dysphagia associated with various other etiologies. Study Design: Prospective. Methods: One-hundred patients with the complaint of swallowing disturbances who underwent a full swallowing survey at the Tel-Aviv Voice and Swallowing Disorder Clinic participated. They all filled in the SDQ. The collected data included patient characteristics, medical history, and the results of an oromotor examination and a fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (FEES). The SDQ results were compared to the FEES and oromotor examination findings. Results: The responses to the questions in the SDQ were highly correlated with the findings of the oral part of the oromotor examination (85.71% sensitivity, 87.6% specificity). Items on the laryngopharyngeal phase reliably assessed dysphagia symptoms in correlation to the FEES examination (67.3% sensitivity, 76.7% specificity). The total SDQ score correlated with the total oromotor and the FEES scores (79.7% sensitivity, 73% specificity). Conclusions: The SDQ is a sensitive and accurate tool for identifying patients with true swallowing disturbances arising from different etiologies and for indicating the need for more in-depth instrumental swallowing evaluations. Key Words: Swallowing disturbances, fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (FEES), dysphagia, questionnaire, swallowing disorder; cerebrovascular accident (CVA).