189 Preferences of Sjögren’s syndrome patients for saliva substitutes Study variables The questionnaire, developed for this study, consisted of eight parts. First, several general questions with regard to age, sex, and year when Sjögren’s syndrome had been diagnosed by a physician. The second part was the internationally accepted and validated Xerostomia Inventory (XI), consisting of 11 items on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = “Never” to 5 = “Very often”. The items concern patients’ oral dryness and mouth feel. Per item, patients indicate how often they experience problems regarding mouth feel and oral dryness. The scores of the 11 items are summed to produce a total XI score that ranges between 11 (no xerostomia) and 55 (extreme xerostomia) [16]. XI had showed adequate content and concurrent validity [16]. The remaining parts of the questionnaire contained questions regarding various product characteristics of hypothetical new saliva substitutes. The third part explored the importance of different functions of saliva substitutes. The patients could indicate the importance of each function by using a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 = “Unimportant” to 5 = “Very important”. All investigated possible functions of salivary substitutes are presented in Table 1. The fourth part consisted of a question about the preferred consistency of saliva substitutes; thin-watery or thick-liquid-like or gel-like. The fifth part explored howmuch the patients object the presence of certain ingredients in saliva substitutes using 5-point Likert scales, ranging from 1 = “No objection” to 5 = “Insurmountable objections”. Table 2 presents all potential ingredients investigated. The sixth part consisted of an itemon the desired flavour of saliva substitutes. A 5-point Likert scale was used to indicate the importance of the availability of each flavour, ranging from 1 = “Unimportant” to 5 = “Very important”. The desired flavours investigated are presented in Table 3. 9
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw