Self-evaluation of communication experiences after laryngectomy (SECEL): translation and psychometric properties in European Portuguese.

Introduction: The patients' perception of how communication dysfunction may cause a disadvantage is important information for the clinical decision-making process.Objectives: This study aimed to translate the self-evaluation of communication experiences after laryngectomy (SECEL) to the European Portuguese (EP) and to assess its feasibility, acceptability, reliability, and validity.Material and methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out, and a cluster sample of seven ENT outpatient clinics was drawn. The EP-SECEL was filled in by 129 people with laryngectomy, aged 29-81 years and 25 of those completed it in the second time. Patients have also filled in the European Organization for Research Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire (EORCT), the core quality of life questionnaire (QLQ-C30) and the 35-item Head and Neck module (H&N35).Results: The EP-SECEL has the same conceptual meaning, semantics, idiomatic, format and score equivalence as the original one. Psychometric analyses revealed that it is feasible (missing <1%, to fill out took about 15 minutes for most patients), acceptable (floor and ceiling effects inferior to 15%), reliable (excellent internal consistency, Cronbach's alpha = 0.90, and moderate test-retest, Spearman's rhô = 0.64), well-constructed (66% of the total variance is explained by exploratory factor analysis), significantly convergent (correlates with the EORTC QLQ-C30 and H&N35) and validly discriminates people with total and partial laryngectomy as well as people with different primary means-of-communication.Conclusions: This study supports that the EP-SECEL has sufficient psychometric qualities to be considered an adequate tool to be recommended for assessing health-related quality of life among laryngectomy patients.

Voice quality after supracricoid laryngectomy and total laryngectomy with insertion of voice prosthesis.

Vocal quality was analyzed in 20 subjects who underwent total laryngectomy with insertion of voice prosthesis (TL with VP) and in 10 subjects who underwent supracricoid laryngectomy (SCL). Acoustic analysis was carried out using Lingwaves and Praat, for sustained vowels and conversation to obtain the fundamental frequency (F(0)) and jitter parameters. Perceptual evaluations and self-assessment of voice impact on the quality of life were also performed. Results showed statistically significant differences between TL+VP and SCL individuals for the mean F(0) during conversation, for Roughness, Grade of voice quality, and self-assessment of speech, with worst results in the SCL group.