Age and Ageing Advance Access originally published online on February 23, 2006
Age and Ageing 2006 35(3):252-256; doi:10.1093/ageing/afj058
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The use of a self-reported pain measure, a nurse-reported pain measure and the PAINAD in nursing home residents with moderate and severe dementia: a validation study
1 Department of Geriatric Medicine, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, 11 Jalan Tan Tock Seng, Singapore 308433
2 National Ageing Research Institute, PO Box 31, Parkville 3052, Australia
Address correspondence to: I. Y.-O. Leong. Fax: (65) 63577837. Email: ian_leong{at}ttsh.com.sg
Objectives: to assess the construct validity of three measures of pain and to determine a categorical version of the Pain Assessment in Advanced Dementia (PAINAD) scale.
Design: validation study determining the concurrent validity of a self-reported pain score (SRPS), a nurse-reported pain score (NRPS) and the PAINAD; the divergent validity of the three pain measures with the Abbreviated Mental Test (AMT) and the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia (CSDD).
Setting and subjects: eighty-eight nursing home residents with moderate and severe dementia.
Methods: residents were asked to rate the severity of their pain in the previous week on a verbal descriptor scale (VDS). Nurses rated the residents pain on a VDS, scored the PAINAD scale and the CSDD scale. Research assistants administered the AMT.
Results: the PAINAD correlated with the NRPS (Kendalls tau [
] = 0.842); both scales correlated poorly with the SRPS (
= 0.304 for both correlations). The PAINAD was significantly different for each level of the NRPS. On the SRPS, the PAINAD for the group with moderate+ pain was significantly different from the groups with mild pain and no pain. There was a difference between the SRPS and the NRPS when residents were depressed, but no difference when they were not. Our categorical version of the PAINAD showed good agreement with the NRPS.
Conclusion: the NRPS and the PAINAD measure pain differently from the SRPS, especially in the presence of depression. Our categorical version of the PAINAD shows good agreement with the NRPS.
Keywords: aged, dementia, elderly, nursing home, pain measurement
Received September 15, 2005; accepted in revised form January 18, 2006.
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