The Swedish King's Parkinson's disease Pain Scale: Validation and pain prevalence in persons with mild-moderate severity Parkinson's disease.

OBJECTIVES

To examine convergent and divergent validity of the King's Parkinson's disease Pain Scale - Swedish translated version, and to determine the prevalence of pain according to scale domains in persons with Parkinson's disease.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional, validation study.

PATIENTS

Ninety-seven persons with Parkinson's disease.

METHODS

The pain scale was translated into Swedish by an accredited company, and permission was granted to use the resultant version. Participants completed the rater-administered The King's Parkinson's disease Pain Scale - Swedish version, the visual analogue scale (pain), Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire (bodily discomfort subscale), MiniBESTest and Walk-12G. Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was used to assess the strength of associations.

RESULTS

The mean (standard deviation) age of participants was 71 (6.1) years, 63% were male, and 76% presented with mild disease severity. The mean (standard deviation) The King's Parkinson's disease Pain Scale - Swedish version score was 7.84 (12.8). A strong (r = 0.65) and moderate (r = 0.45) association was found between the newly-translated version and visual analogue scale (pain) and Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire - bodily discomfort subscale, respectively. Weak associations were found between the newly translated version and divergent measures. Overall pain prevalence was 57%, with musculoskeletal pain being the most common, followed by chronic and radicular pain.

CONCLUSION

This study affirms aspects of validity of the Swedish King's Parkinson's disease Pain Scale. Most participants presented with 1 or more types of pain, highlighting the need for targeted interventions.