Quality Assessment of Neonatal Pain Scales Translated and Validated to Brazilian Portuguese: A Systematic Review of Psychometric Properties

The objective of this systematic review was to identify and describe the psychometric properties of neonatal pain scales that were translated into Brazilian Portuguese and to verify the methodological quality of these translation, transcultural adaptations and validation. The present study is a systematic review. A systematic search in the literature included studies of development, validation, and transcultural adaptation of neonatal pain scales to Brazilian Portuguese. The instruments must have been developed for health care professionals to evaluate neonatal pain and stress in full-term and preterm newborns. The search strategy was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and Scielo databases following The PRISMA guidelines (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses). A total of 1,479 publications were identified and 5 fulfilled the inclusion criteria, with 4 instruments evaluated. For the methodological quality analysis of the measurement properties of the instruments the Consensus-based Standards for Health Measurement Instruments (COSMIN) Risk of Bias checklist was used. The psychometric properties verified were internal consistency, content validity, reliability, and construct validity. Three instruments reviewed were inadequate and one was doubtful. The neonatal pain scales wich were cross culturally adapted to Brazilian Portuguese were shown to be of low methodological quality based on COSMIM checklist. Caution should be considered for clinical decisions about pain management judgment coming from these instruments.