Richmond agitation- sedation scale validity and reliability in intensive care unit adult patients; Persian version

Aims. Sedative medications are widely used in intensive care unit patients. Structured assessment of sedation and agitation is useful to titrate sedative medications and to evaluate agitated behavior with persian version of Richmond agitation/sedation scale. Methods. At first the english version of Richmond translated to persian and the initial persian version made by expert confirm. This version studied on 35 patients. Then the persian version translated back to english and evaluated in 35 other patients. After teaching to users (one anesthesiologist and 7 nurses), this scale studied in 2 phases on 120 adult ICU patients in one of the Tehran hospitals to measure the inter-rater reliability and validity. Results. Comparing the intraclass correlation coefficient (RASS; κ) equal to 0.65 with visual analog scale (r) equal to 0.76 and interclass correlation coefficient (α) equal to 0.95 showed a significant correlation between the raters. Conclusion. Persian version of Richmond agitation/sedation scale is logical, easy to administer and readily recalled. It has high reliability and validity in medical and surgical, ventilated or no ventilated and sedated or no sedated adult ICU patients.