Validated spanish-language questionnaires for audiological and vestibular assessment: a scoping review

Abstract

This scoping review aimed to identify and characterize validated Spanish-language au­ditory questionnaires, describing the available evidence on their psychometric properties. Arksey and O’Malley recommendations and PRISMA-ScR standards were followed to con­duct a systematic search in PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBASE, and LILACS for questionnaires formally validated in Spanish for audiological and vestibular assessment in adults. Studies reporting at least one quantitatively assessed psychometric property were included, and ad­ditionally, Spanish-speaking experts were consulted regarding the use of these instruments in clinical practice. Thirty-two validated questionnaires were identified from 30 studies, distributed across seven clinical domains: hearing loss and functional impact, tinnitus, vestibular assessment, amplification devices, specific otological pathology, auditory fatigue, and noise exposure. Spain (37.5%), Chile (28.1%), and Mexico (18.8%) concentrated 84.4% of the validations, while 50% of the instruments were validated between 2015-2025. All questionnaires reported internal consistency (a = 0.80-0.97), 87.5% content validity, 46.9% test-retest reliability, and 50% structural validity. Only 15.6% met all four evalua­ted psychometric properties, and consultation with 17 experts revealed a gap between the availability of validated instruments and their systematic clinical implementation. The findings indicate that there is growing but unequal availability of validated Spanish-language audiological questionnaires, with geographic concentration in three countries and limita­tions in complete psychometric validation, therefore requiring strengthened cross-cultural validation processes and promoted clinical implementation.