Reliability study in five languages of the translation of the pain behavioural scale Doloplus®

Non-verbal pain assessment scales are useful tools for pain evaluation in persons with communication disorders and moderate-severe dementia. The Doloplus® was one of the first scales to be developed and validated as a pain assessment tool in older adults with dementia. This study aims at evaluating the translation of the Doloplus® scale in five languages, as regards test-retest and inter-rater reliability. Results show that both tests are good or excellent for the English, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish versions and moderate for the Dutch version. These results bring a unique opportunity to include the translated Doloplus® scale in daily assessment of elderly persons with communication disorders, and future studies should focus on enriching the validation of the scale in each language.