Translation, Adaptation and Validity Assessment of the Cornell Assessment of Pediatric Delirium Scale in Persian language

Delirium is an acute mental disorder that has been less considered in children. The Cornell Assessment of Pediatric Delirium (CAPD) is designed to detect delirium in children by non-specialist personnel. The purpose of this study was to translate and evaluate the validity and reliability of this scale in Persian language.

In this study, after translation and back-translation, corrections were performed. Then, face validity was assessed by 10 clinical nurses using qualitative method. After the final correction, the scale was tested by three nurses in 72 patients in pediatric intensive care unit, Sari, Iran. Kendall index and Kappa correlation coefficient were used to verify the reliability of the scale.

The mean age of the patients was 3.88±2.11 years and 39 (54.2%) were males. The delirium score was 6.22±2.95. The mean delirium sore was 6.22±2.95. The most common cause of admission was respiratory problems and 18 (25%) cases had delirium. In Kendall coefficient reliability test, the total score was 0.046. There were no significant differences between the three evaluators in the scores for questions and the total score (P< 0.05). The Kappa correlation coefficient was more than 0.4 when the opinion of evaluaters were compared to one another.

In this study the prevalence of delirium was similar to that of other international studies. The Persian translation of CAPD showed good reliability. The CAPD could be easily administered to detect delirium.