Questionnaires Used to Quantify Hearing and Balance Disorders

Timothy C. Hain, MD Page last modified: March 21, 2010

It is often useful to get a formal measurement of subjective symptoms accompaning a hearing and balance disorder. These questionnaires are generally published in publically accessible journals, and for this reason, they are not proprietary. While using the names of these instruments often sounds impressive, when you look at them carefully, you will see that these are often composed of very simple questions/answers. In our opinion, thats OK, but we think it is pretentious to use the names of these simple lists of questions as if they were magical incantations. We prefer functional names (such as the ABC) to instruments named after their authors.

Below are some of the questionnaires that we have found useful.

We have implemented a few of these questionnaires online at this address: http://www.dizzy-doctor.com/survey/ This is a work in progress. We plan to (eventually) get them all up in a format that can be easily used by those who are interested in these things.

Questionnaire used to quantify balance dysfunction	Link to questionnaire	Source
Activities specific Balance Confidence Scale (ABC)	ABC (CDH web site)	Powell and Meyers, 1995; Whitney et al, 1999
Berg Balance Scale. This is commonly used.	http://www.aahf.info/pdf/Berg_Balance_Scale.pdf http://www.strokecenter.org/trials/scales/berg.html	Berg et al, 1989.
Chambliss Mobility Survey	CMS	http://www.psych.upenn.edu/~dchamb/questionnaires/index.html
Dizziness Handicap Inventory. The DHI is commonly used.	DHI	Jacobson and Newman, 1990
Hearing screen (AAA version)	HS	http://www.audiology.org/aboutaudiology/consumered/guides/quicktest.htm?PF=1 This link was dead as of 3/2010 (TCH)
Hearing questionnaire (NIH version)	HQ	http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/hearing/10ways.asp
Falls efficacy scale.	FES	Tinetti, Richman et al. 1990
Modified falls efficacy scale (MFES)	MFES	Hill, Schwartz and others, 1996
Medical outcomes study short form 36 (SF-36). The link provides a public-domain source for this questionnaire. A local copy of it is here.	SF-36	Enloe and Sheilds, 1997. http://www.rand.org/health/surveys_tools/mos/mos_core_36item.html
Tinnitus History Questionnaire	THQ
Vestibular Activities of Daily Living. We don't know of anyone using this.		Cohen et al, 2000

Berg K, Wood-Dauphinee S, Williams JI, Gayton D: Measuring balance in the elderly: Preliminary development of an instrument.
Physiotherapy Canada, 41:304-311, 1989.
Chambless, D.L., Caputo, G.C., Jasin, S.E., Gracely, E.J., & Williams, C. (1985). The Mobility Inventory for Agoraphobia. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 23, 35-44. Original paper on the development of the scale, reliability, discriminative validity, treatment sensitivity, and concurrent and construct validity.
Cohen, H. S., et al. (2000). "Development of the vestibular disorders activities of daily living scale." Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 126(7): 881-7.
Cohen, H. S., et al. (2000). "Application of the vestibular disorders activities of daily living scale." Laryngoscope 110(7): 1204-9.
Enloe, L. J. and R. K. Shields (1997). "Evaluation of health-related quality of life in individuals with vestibular disease using disease-specific and general outcome measures." Phys Ther 77(9): 890-903.
Hill, K. D., J. A. Schwarz, et al. (1996). "Fear of falling revisited." Arch Phys Med Rehabil 77(10): 1025-9.
Jacobson, G. P. and J. H. Calder (1998). "A screening version of the Dizziness Handicap Inventory (DHI-S)." Am J Otol 19(6): 804-8.
Jacobson, G. P. and C. W. Newman (1990). "The development of the Dizziness Handicap Inventory." Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 116(4): 424-7.
Jacobson, G. P., C. W. Newman, et al. (1991). "Balance function test correlates of the Dizziness Handicap Inventory." J Am Acad Audiol 2(4): 253-60.
Jacobson G, Calder J (1998) A screening version of the dizziness handicap inventory. American J. Otology 19(6) 804-808
Powell, L. E. and A. M. Myers (1995). "The Activities-specific Balance Confidence (ABC) Scale." J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci 50A(1): M28-34.
Tinetti ME, Richman D and Powell L (1990). "Falls efficacy as a measure of fear of falling." Journal of Gerontology 45(6): 239-43.
Whitney, S. L., M. T. Hudak, et al. (1999). "The activities-specific balance confidence scale and the dizziness handicap inventory: a comparison." J Vestib Res 9(4): 253-9.