Purpose: A review of the Dizziness Handicap Inventory (DHI). NUMBER OF STUDIES: Seventy-four studies.
Materials/methods: Articles published between January 1990 and May 2012 were identified by searches in PubMed electronic database. Of the 227 articles meeting the inclusion criteria 74 were reviewed. These articles are discussed under nine topics; Reliability, validity and internal consistency of the original version of DHI, relationship between vestibular/balance tests and DHI, association between DHI and the other scales related to balance impairments, exploratory factor analysis of the DHI, screening version of DHI, translations of DHI into other languages, the role of DHI to assess the success of the treatment of balance disorder, DHI results in various vestibular disorders, general characteristics of DHI in patients with balance impairment.
Conclusions: Self reported measures represent unique pieces of the information important for the management of dizzy patients. DHI is the most widely used self reported measurement of patients with dizziness. It has been translated into fourteen languages, so it is widely accepted.
Keywords: Dizziness handicap inventory; vestibular disorders; vestibular rehabilitation.