The following is a summary of “Development and Validation of the Sinonasal Outcome Test-12,” published in the July 2023 issue of Primary Care by Sharhan, et al.

The utilization of quality of life (QoL) questionnaires in clinical assessments is widespread, serving to evaluate the effects of medical interventions and measure healthcare service outcomes. These questionnaires aim to subjectively assess health status and its impact on an individual’s quality of life. For a study, researchers sought to develop an efficient and concise sinonasal disease assessment tool, the sinonasal outcomes test-12 (SNOT-12), and to compare its performance against the existing SNOT-22.

Conducted between June 2019 and February 2020, the two-phase cross-sectional study utilized electronic records from the ORL department outpatient clinics at King Fahd University Hospital, affiliated with Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University. The study comprised two phases: an item reduction phase leading to the initial SNOT-12 scale and a subsequent validation phase involving a comparative analysis between the initial SNOT-12 and the SNOT-22.

The newly developed SNOT-12 short-form questionnaire maintained the four latent factors identified during exploratory factor analysis (nasal, sleep/extra nasal, psychological, ear/facial). It strongly correlated with the established SNOT-22 (r = 0.973). The SNOT-12 exhibited satisfactory construct reliability (0.705-0.901) and validity and demonstrated superior discriminatory ability compared to the SNOT-22.

The SNOT-12 presents as a succinct, valid, and reliable tool with the potential for initial screening and ongoing monitoring of patients afflicted with chronic rhinosinusitis.

Source: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/21501319231189060