Reliability of the Italian version of the International Spinal Cord Injury Pain Basic Data Set.

Study Design: Multicentric prospective psychometric study.

Objective: To provide a translation of the International Spinal Cord Injury Pain Basic Data Set (ISCIPBDS) for Italian persons and to evaluate the interrater reliability of the translated version.

Setting: Ten Italian rehabilitation centres specialized in spinal injury care.

Methods: The initial translation was performed by two medical doctors who had an in-depth knowledge of spinal cord injury (SCI), and then a back translation (from Italian to English) was given to an accredited agency. Sixty-six participants with SCI (53 men, 13 women; mean ± SD age: 53.4 ± 16.0 years) were evaluated by means of the Italian version of the ISCIPBDS by two different examiners. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) or Cohen's Kappa (ĸ) was calculated to test the interrater agreement for the test-retest cases.

Results: All 66 participants had at least one pain problem and 34% of them had only one type of pain. A good interrater agreement was obtained in terms of number of pain (ICC = 0.781), type of pain (ĸ = 0.683), pain intensity (ICC = 0.798), correspondence of pain localization (ĸ = 0.750), and the value of the pain interference in day-to-day activities, overall mood and night's sleep (ICC = 0.827, ICC = 0.861 and ICC = 0.724, respectively). Eventually a prominent prevalence of neuropathic pain was recorded (64% from the first examiner and 62% from the second one).

Conclusions: The authors propose the Italian version of ISCIPBDS that can be used for research and clinical evaluation of pain in SCI persons; it shows a significant interrater reliability.