Validity and reliability of the Hindi version of the Summated Xerostomia Inventory-5 among head and neck cancer irradiated patients in Delhi, India

Objectives: To cross-culturally adapt and determine reliability and validity of the Hindi version of the Summated Xerostomia Inventory (SXI-H). Background: Xerostomia is common among older individuals and patients with head and neck radiation or autoimmune diseases, and it can affect their oral as well as systemic quality of life. To assess the perception of this condition, SXI-H can be used. Materials and Methods: This was a multi-centric cross-sectional observational study of volunteers suffering from hypo-salivation in three tertiary care cancer hospitals in Delhi, India. The English version of Summated Xerostomia Inventory (SXI-5) was translated into Hindi according to standard guidelines and field tested. The Hindi version of SXI-5 (SXI-H) was tested on 120 patients with xerostomia. All the participants signed the informed consent form before being interviewed with SXI-H. Thirty participants were interviewed again after 15 days. A global question was asked for criteria validity. Data were analyzed through IBM SPSS (TM) Statistics for windows version 24. Significance was set at P <= 0.05. Results: Overall SXI-H score of sample was 11.48 +/- 2.29. Cronbach's a value was 0.81. The correlation between the SXI-H summary score and the standard question was 0.79 (95% CI 0.65-0.74). It was found that the intra-class correlation coefficient value for the test-retest reliability was 0.90 and scores for individual question ranged from 0.41 to 0.76. Conclusion: The SXI-H demonstrated excellent psychometric properties and can be considered a valid tool for assessing xerostomia in a dry mouth patient.