Design and Psychometrics of a Satisfaction Questionnaire for Tele Speech Therapy Services in Tehran

Abstract

Objective After the COVID-19 pandemic, providing health care has changed and telehealth services have expanded rapidly. Telemedicine in most sciences, including speech therapy, has become more and more popular throughout the world. However, in Iran, many families still hesitate to use telepractice in speech. The purpose of this study was to design and psychometrically evaluate the satisfaction questionnaire of families of children with stuttering or speech sound disorders from telepractice in speech therapy services. Materials & Methods This study is a methodological tool-making study. The statistical population of the research consisted of 142 parents of children with stuttering and speech sound disorders who used telepractice in speech therapy services living in Tehran Province, Iran, in 2022. The samples were chosen by available sampling. The content validity of the questionnaire was assessed by 11 speech therapy professors and specialists, and the face validity was assessed by 10 families that used telepractice in speech therapy services. The structural validity and reliability (factor analysis) were evaluated based on a questionnaire completed by 142 parents of children with stuttering and speech sound disorders. Internal consistency and reproducibility were used to assess the reliability of the questionnaire. To check the reliability (reproducibility of the tool), 30 participants completed the questionnaire over a time interval of two weeks. Data analysis was done using SPSS software, version 24. Results The average content validity ratio (CVR) in accepted items was 0.903 and the average content validity index (CVI) in accepted items was 0.935. The result of the factor analysis showed 3 factors: Effectiveness, user-friendliness, responsibility and responsiveness of the therapist, which explained 57.1% of the total variance. The Cronbach α coefficient of the whole questionnaire was 0.94 and three factors exceeded 0.7. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) value for all three factors and the entire questionnaire was >0.9. Conclusion The findings of this research indicate that the questionnaire on families’ satisfaction with telepractice in speech therapy services is an acceptable questionnaire with good validity (face, content and structure) and reliability (internal consistency and repeatability). Speech therapists can use this questionnaire to evaluate families’ satisfaction with children with stuttering or speech sound disorders. Also, families can use it to assess remote sessions more accurately.

Keywords

• telerehabilitation
• satisfaction
• stuttering
• articulation disorder
• questionnaire