You can also have a look at the method findText(const QString & text) from QComboBox; it returns the index of the element which contains the given text, (-1 if not found). The advantage of using this method is that you don't need to set the second parameter when you add an item.
Here is a little example :
/* Create the comboBox */
QComboBox *_comboBox = new QComboBox;
/* Create the ComboBox elements list (here we use QString) */
QList<QString> stringsList;
stringsList.append("Text1");
stringsList.append("Text3");
stringsList.append("Text4");
stringsList.append("Text2");
stringsList.append("Text5");
/* Populate the comboBox */
_comboBox->addItems(stringsList);
/* Create the label */
QLabel *label = new QLabel;
/* Search for "Text2" text */
int index = _comboBox->findText("Text2");
if( index == -1 )
label->setText("Text2 not found !");
else
label->setText(QString("Text2's index is ")
.append(QString::number(_comboBox->findText("Text2"))));
/* setup layout */
QVBoxLayout *layout = new QVBoxLayout(this);
layout->addWidget(_comboBox);
layout->addWidget(label);