Arabic Translation and Validation of Olfactory-Specific Quality of Life Assessment Questionnaire

Alsayid, Hoda; Alnakhli, Sarah; Marzouki, Hani Z; Varshney, Rickul; Zawawi, Faisal

Background: Olfaction plays a critical role in our health, emotions, social life and safety, which is why olfactory dysfunction has a great impact on a person’s life. This has been highlighted with the recent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Despite Arabic being the fifth most commonly spoken language and one of the six official languages of the United Nations, there is no Arabic version for an olfactory-specific quality of life assessment tool. Method: The Questionnaire of Olfactory Disorders-Negative Statements (QOD-NS) is a validated questionnaire that assesses many aspects of a patient’s daily life. We translated this questionnaire to the Arabic language following European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Quality of Life Group Translation Procedure guidelines. A pilot-testing of the Arabic version was done among 20 participants, 10 of whom were confirmed to have normosmia based on scoring at least 11/12 on the Sniffin’ Sticks (SS) olfactory testing (Group 1) and another 10 participants who reported anosmia and scored less than 7/12 on the SS test. Patients could agree, partially agree, partially disagree, or disagree with each questionnaire statement. Results: The pilot study revealed that participants with confirmed anosmia had higher questionnaire scores compared to participants with normosomia (median 22 compared to 1, p value < 0.001). For each statement on the Arabic questionnaire, all questions scored at least 80% of intra-rater reliability, and the overall intra-rater reliability was 90%. Conclusion: The Arabic translation of QOD-NS is a validated questionnaire that can be used both in academic and clinical practice.