The Swedish King's Parkinson's disease Pain Scale: Validation and pain prevalence in persons with mild-moderate severity Parkinson's disease.
Conran Joseph, Hanna Johansson, Breiffni Leavy and 1 others
PMID 37306508WHAT IT FOUND
The Swedish King's Parkinson's Pain Scale correlates strongly with visual pain scores and captures pain independently of balance.
In mild-moderate Parkinson's, 57% reported pain, mostly musculoskeletal. Use this scale to identify pain types that require specific rehabilitation strategies.
Key findings
01The Swedish version of the King's Parkinson's Pain Scale showed a strong correlation (r = 0.65) with the Visual Analogue Scale for pain, supporting its validity.
02Pain prevalence was 57% using the scale, with musculoskeletal (37%), chronic (20%), and radicular (20%) pain being the most common domains.
03The scale demonstrated divergent validity, showing no significant correlation with the Mini-BESTest balance measure (r = -0.08), indicating it measures pain rather than balance function.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The sample included only mild-to-moderate disease (Hoehn & Yahr II and III), so results may not apply to advanced stages where pain is often more severe. The study excluded people with significant cognitive impairment (MoCA < 21), limiting generalizability to those with dementia. Inferential analyses were performed on a subset of 88 participants, not the full 97. The study did not assess test-retest reliability or responsiveness to change, only validity.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not use the KPPS to assess balance or walking ability. The study showed the scale does not correlate with the Mini-BESTest, meaning a high pain score does not indicate poor balance, and a low pain score does not confirm good balance.