Translation, cross-cultural adaptation and preliminary evaluation of the brazilian version of the pain catastrophizing scale-parents

Abstract

Objective: In Brazil, there is no scale to assess parental catastrophizing about their child’s pain. This study aimed to translate and cross-culturally adapt the Pain Catastrophizing Scale-Parents to the Brazilian Portuguese language, as well as to preliminarily evaluate its psychometric properties among parents/ guardians of children with and without a toothache. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 237 parents/ other relatives of 237 children. A cross-cultural adaptation of the scale into Brazilian Portuguese was carried out according to the universalistic approach. To assess the reliability and validity of the scale, parents/other relatives reported on the child’s toothache and filled out the Brazilian versions of the Pain Catastrophizing Scale-Parents and the Dental Discomfort Questionnaire. Results: There was semantic equivalence with the original version after minor modifications. The Cronbach’s alpha for the 13 items of the scale was 0.83, and the respective test–retest intraclass correlation coefficients ranged from 0.63 to 0.97. The scores obtained from the Pain Catastrophizing Scale-Parents and the Dental Discomfort Questionnaire had a low correlation (rho=0.25; p<0.001). The total score of the Pain Catastrophizing Scale-Parents differed significantly (p<0.001) in children with a toothache at night (median: 3.0, 25–75 percentile: 25.0–35.5) compared to those who did not have a toothache at night (25.5; 20.0–31.0). Conclusions: The Brazilian version of the Pain Catastrophizing Scale-Parents was acceptable in this preliminary evaluation and can be used in Brazilian clinical and research practice.