Introduction: Symptomatic control and improvement of healthrelated quality of life (HRQoL) is a key feature of the management of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). The 39-item Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire (PDQ) and its short version, PDQ-8, validated diseasespecific patient-reported instruments, have been highly recommended to use for assessing HRQoL in patients with PD. The aim of this study was to assess the reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the PDQ-8. Methods: Eighty-three patients with PD were recruited for this methodological and cross-sectional study. The PDQ-8 was repeated to assess the test-retest reliability after one-week interval. The participants completed the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) as a generic HRQoL previously validated in Turkey. The Hoehn & Yahr stages of the patients were also determined. The SF-36 and Hoehn & Yahr stages were used to assess the convergent validity of the PDQ-8. Results: The Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.78 (95% CI: 0.70-0.84, p<0.001) for PDQ-8. The test-retest reliability was very high as the intra-class correlation coefficient was 0.97 (95% CI: 0.93-0.99, p<0.001). The PDQ-8 had significant correlations with the physical and mental component scores of SF-36 (ρ=-0.52, p<0.001 and ρ=-0.64, p<0.001, respectively) and Hoehn & Yahr stages (ρ=0.56, p<0.001). There was no evidence of floor or ceiling effects. Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that the Turkish version of the PDQ-8 is a reliable, valid, less time-consuming, and brief diseasespecific instrument to assess HRQoL in patients with Parkinson's disease.
Purpose
The effects of neurological diseases on the auditory system have been a notable issue for investigators because the auditory pathway is closely associated with neural systems. The purposes of this study are to evaluate the efferent auditory system function and hearing quality in Parkinson's disease (PD) and to compare the findings with age-matched individuals without PD to present a perspective on aging.
Method
The study included 35 individuals with PD (mean age of 48.50 ± 8.00 years) and 35 normal-hearing peers (mean age of 49 ± 10 years). The following tests were administered for all participants: the first section of the Speech, Spatial and Qualities of Hearing Scale; pure-tone audiometry, speech audiometry, tympanometry, and acoustic reflexes; and distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) and contralateral suppression of DPOAEs. SPSS Version 25 was used for statistical analyses, and values of
p
< .05 were considered statistically significant.
Results
There were no statistically significant differences in the pure-tone audiometry thresholds and DPOAE responses between the individuals with PD and their normal-hearing peers (
p
= .732). However, statistically significant differences were found between the groups in suppression levels of DPOAEs and hearing quality (
p
< .05). In addition, a statistically significant and positive correlation was found between the amount of suppression at some frequencies and the Speech, Spatial and Qualities of Hearing Scale scores.
Conclusions
This study indicates that medial olivocochlear efferent system function and the hearing quality of individuals with PD were affected adversely due to the results of PD pathophysiology on the hearing system. For optimal intervention and follow-up, tasks related to hearing quality in daily life can also be added to therapies for PD.
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