Assessing Patient Symptoms Due to Nasal Septal Perforation: Development and Validation of the NOSE-Perf Scale.

OBJECTIVE: Reporting patient symptoms due to nasal septal perforation (NSP) has been hindered by the lack of a validated disease-specific symptom score. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate an instrument for assessing patient-reported symptoms related to NSP.

STUDY DESIGN: Validation study.

SETTING: A tertiary care center.

METHODS: The Nasal Obstruction Symptom Evaluation (NOSE) scale was used as an initial construct to which 7 nonobstruction questions were added to measure septal perforation symptoms. The proposed NOSE-Perf instrument was distributed to consecutive patients evaluated for NSP, those with nasal obstruction without NSP, and a control group without rhinologic complaints. Questionnaires were redistributed to the subgroup with NSP prior to treatment of the perforation.

RESULTS: The study instrument was completed by 31 patients with NSP, 17 with only nasal obstruction, and 22 without rhinologic complaint. Internal consistency was high throughout the entire instrument (Cronbach α = 0.935; 95% CI, 0.905-0.954). Test-retest reliability was demonstrated by very strong correlation between questionnaires completed by the same patient at least 1 week apart ( r = 0.898, P < .001). Discriminant validity was confirmed via a receiver operating characteristic ( P < .001, area under the curve = 0.700). The NOSE-Perf scale was able to distinguish among all 3 study groups ( P < .001) and between NSP and nasal obstruction ( P = .024). When used alone, the NOSE scale could not discriminate between NSP and nasal obstruction ( P = .545).

CONCLUSIONS: The NOSE-Perf scale is a validated and reliable clinical assessment tool that can be applied to adult patients with NSP.