Cross-cultural adaptation of the Paediatric Palliative Screening Scale for the early referral of pediatric patients to palliative care teams.

Introduction. The Paediatric Palliative Screening Scale (PaPaS Scale) is a tool designed to help identify children aged 1 to 18 who would benefit from pediatric palliative care (PPC) and to facilitate early referral. No similar tool exists in Spanish. The objective was to translate and cross-culturally adapt the PaPaS Scale into Spanish for screening and early referral to PPC teams for pediatric patients aged 12 months to 18 years with life-threatening or life-limiting illnesses. Methods. Translation and cultural adaptation of the PaPaS Scale into Spanish, consisting of five phases: obtaining authorization from the scale's authors, direct translation, back-translation, evaluation by a committee of experts, and pretesting. Results. Authorization was obtained from the scale's author, Eva Bergstraesser; this was followed by a direct translation (with subsequent reconciliation), a back-translation of the resulting scale into English, validation by a committee of experts in research, health sciences, and humanities; and a pretest consisting of an evaluation of the scale by five physicians specializing in PPC. At each stage, the necessary changes were made to adapt the scale. Conclusion. A culturally adapted Spanish-language scale was developed that could serve as a useful tool for the early identification of PPC in pediatric care, following appropriate validation.