The Arabic Version of the Faces Pain Scale-Revised: Cultural Adaptation, Validity, and Reliability Properties When Used with Children and Adolescents

The Faces Pain Scale-Revised (FPS-R) is widely used to assess pain intensity in young people. The aims of this research were to study the convergent and discriminant validity and reliability properties of a culturally adapted version of the FPS-R for its use with Arabic-speaking individuals. The sample consisted of 292 students living in Lebanon. They were interviewed online, asked to imagine themselves in one of two given situations based on their age (8–12 and 13–18 years old), and then asked rate the intensity of pain they would experience using the FPS-R-Arabic and a Numerical Rating Scale (NRS-11-Arabic). They were also asked to respond to the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS-C-Arabic). Two weeks later, participants were asked to repeat the same procedure. The data showed strong associations between the scores of the FPS-R-Arabic and NRS-11-Arabic (r = 0.72; p < 0.001), which were higher than the associations of the scores of the FPS-Arabic with the PCS-C-Arabic scores (z = 7.36, p < 0.001). The associations between the FPS-R-Arabic scores on the two measurements were also strong (r = 0.76; p < 0.001). The findings support the convergent and discriminant validity and reliability of the FPS-R-Arabic scores when used to measure pain intensity in young people aged 8 to 18 years old.