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Validation of a pain evaluation scale for patients with severe cerebral palsy
Author(s) -
Collig Patrick,
Giusiano Bernard
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
european journal of pain
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.305
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1532-2149
pISSN - 1090-3801
DOI - 10.1053/eujp.2001.0265
Subject(s) - cerebral palsy , psychology , scale (ratio) , construct (python library) , construct validity , physical therapy , physical medicine and rehabilitation , cerebral palsied , clinical psychology , psychometrics , medicine , psychiatry , computer science , physics , quantum mechanics , programming language
Polyhandicapped children are extremely limited by severe mental retardation, motor deficiency, perception disability and expression troubles. So pain is very difficult to assess in these patients. We have developed a specific scale for rapid evaluation of pain based on the observation of their behaviour. A first questionnaire listing 22 items was elaborated by physicians and nurses on the basis of their clinical experience. The first part of our study was designed to select the most pertinent items in order to define a final scale for simple and reliable everyday use. The second part of our study was designed to demonstrate the construct validity and the psychometric qualities and to determine the threshold of decision of the 10‐item final scale. This tool seems to be sensitive and reliable enough to assess pain in severely cerebrally palsied children and young adults.