Development and Preliminary Findings of the Dizziness Symptom Profile (2019, Jacobson et al.)
This study describes the development of the Dizziness Symptom Profile (DSP), a 31-item questionnaire designed to organize a patient’s dizziness history and identify possible diagnostic patterns. The DSP does not provide a final diagnosis. Instead, it suggests one or more conditions that a clinician may consider alongside the patient’s history, physical examination, and appropriate testing. The conditions included in the symptom clusters for the study are vestibular migraine, Ménière’s, BPPV, vestibular neuritis or labyrinthitis, SCDS, PPPD, and unspecified unsteadiness.
Permanent Link: https://doi.org/10.1097/AUD.0000000000000628
Why is this research important for dizziness care?
A detailed symptom history is an important part of a dizziness evaluation, but collecting that history can be difficult. Patients may use different words to describe similar sensations, symptoms may change over time, and several conditions may occur together. Clinicians must organize a large amount of information during a limited appointment.
The DSP provides a structured way to collect this information before or during the first visit. Its results may help a clinician narrow a long list of possible causes into a smaller group that can be investigated. The DSP also allows more than one symptom profile to receive a high score. This is important because a patient may have more than one condition. However, please note that the results of the study support the DSP as a clinical decision-support tool, not as a stand-alone diagnostic test.
For Dizzy Care Network, this research continues to validate the use of structured symptom questions to organize the patient’s history and guide the next steps in care. Questionnaire results can help clinicians prepare for an evaluation, but they must always be reviewed together with clinical findings. Dizzy Care Network provides comprehensive reports that efficiently organize patient symptoms and experiences into easy-to-read tables, paragraphs, and lists.
Key takeaways for Care Seekers
- The DSP asks questions about the timing, triggers, and other features of your dizziness.
- A high score does not mean that you have that condition.
- A qualified clinician must review the results and complete the appropriate examination and testing.
- The DSP does not include every possible cause of dizziness and should not replace medical care.
Key takeaways for Clinicians
- The final DSP contains 31 items divided among seven symptom-based subscales.
- Patients rate each statement from 0, or “strongly disagree,” to 4, or “strongly agree.”
- The authors converted each subscale to a percentage. A score of 60% or higher was considered a positive endorsement, while a score below 40% was considered negative.
- The strongest preliminary agreement was found for Ménière’s disease, vestibular migraine, and BPPV.
- Overall classification accuracy was approximately 70%, but this reflected agreement with first-visit differential diagnoses rather than confirmed final diagnoses.
- The samples for superior canal dehiscence, vestibular neuritis or labyrinthitis, and PPPD were too small to support firm conclusions about accuracy.
- Results may be affected by recall, symptom awareness, misunderstanding of an item, or over-endorsement of several symptoms.
- The DSP should not replace clinical history, physical examination, positional testing, vestibular assessment, imaging, or referral decisions.