DigitalVHI—a freeware open-source software application to capture the Voice Handicap Index and other questionnaire data in various languages

Abstract

In this short report we introduce DigitalVHI, a free open-source software application for obtaining Voice Handicap Index (VHI) and other questionnaire data, which can be put on a computer in clinics and used in clinical practice. The software can simplify performing clinical studies since it makes the VHI scores directly available for analysis in a digital form. It can be downloaded from http://www.christian-herbst.org/DigitalVHI/

Key words::

• Voice Handicap Index
• software application
• questionnaire
• digital

Acknowledgements

DigitalVHI was written by author C.T.H. in the programming language Python (http://www.python.org/). Standalone executables for both Windows 7 and Mac OS X were generated by author J.O. The work has been co-financed by the European Social Fund and the state budget of the Czech Republic within the project no. CZ.1.07/2.3.00/ 30.0004 ‘POST-UP’ (C.T.H., J.G.S.) and the projects no. CZ.1.07/2.4.00/17.0009 and CZ 1.07/2.3.00/ 20.0057 (J.V., J.G.S.). Our sincere thanks go to our colleagues who kindly agreed to test the software. Finally, we express our gratitude to Dr Josef Schlömicher-Thier from the Austrian Voice Institute for funding the development of the initial software prototype.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest.