The Articulation Handicap Scale with 12 items (AHS-12): a short form of the Articulation Handicap Index (AHI)

Abstract

Objective

The objective is to produce a short instrument for measuring the subjectively experienced articulation handicap, i.e. the extent to which physical, functional, and emotional handicaps caused by a physical deficit are subjectively experienced.

Methods

The items for the short instrument were selected from the 30 items of the Articulation Handicap Index (AHI) by removing items on the basis of item-total correlations using data from 113 cancer survivors. Reliability and validity of the sum score of the corresponding item selection were used for determining the optimal item selection. This optimal item selection was compared with the AHI in an RCT with patients undergoing phoniatric routine diagnostics.

Results

With only 12 items left, the measurement instrument was still as reliable and valid as the AHI. With less than 12 items, reliability and validity decreased. In the RCT between the AHI (n = 41) and the 12-item selection (n = 40), reliability and validity of both instruments were the same, but processing times differed (AHI; 3.84 min; 12-item selection: 2.02 min).

Conclusion

The 12-item selection, further referred to as the Articulation Handicap Scale with 12 items (AHS-12), provides nearly as much information as the original AHI.

Keywords:

• Articulation Handicap Scale
• speech disorder
• quality of life
• oral cancer
• physical
• emotional

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Annerose Keilmann

Annerose Keilmann is the Director of the Voice Care Center Bad Rappenau, Germany. There, persons with voice disorders and patients who have been treated because of a head/neck cancer are admitted for indoor intensive multidisciplinary rehabilitation. Her current interests include the effectiveness of treatment for voice, speech and deglutition disorders and health-related quality of life. She is currently the President of the German Society for Phoniatrics and Pedaudiology.

Uwe Konerding

Uwe Konerding is currently a senior researcher at the Trimberg Research Academy at the University of Bamberg (Germany). His research interests are outcome measurement and evaluation research in the health setting, prevention regarding health and the analysis of health-related behaviour.

Constantin Oberherr

Constantin Oberherr completed professional training as a banker prior to his dentistry studies at the University of Mainz. In the context of his dissertation he worked in the Phoniatric Department. Since 2010, he has been working as a dentist.

Tadeus Nawka

Tadeus Nawka is the Head of the Voice Center of the Phoniatric Department at the Charité University Medical Department in Berlin. Since 2017, he has held the position of President of the European Academy of Phoniatrics (EAP), the educational branch of the Union of European Phoniatricians (UEP). He is one of the editors of the European Manual of Medicine, Phoniatrics, a textbook representing today’s state of the art in phoniatrics. His duties include the care of patients with voice, breathing and swallowing disorders.