Abstract
Introduction
Catatonia is a common neuropsychiatric syndrome comprising motor, behavioural, and affective symptoms. Catatonia is frequently underdiagnosed and may cause serious harm. A knowledge gap in recognising catatonia symptoms among clinicians has previously been demonstrated. The Bush-Francis Catatonia Rating Scale (BFCRS) is the most widely used catatonia scale; it has strong inter-rater reliability and is easy to apply. No catatonia scale exists in Danish, and the aim of this study was to validate a Danish translation of the BFCRS.Methods
The Danish version was made after forward and backward translation, independently by two pairs of researchers. Afterwards, disagreements were clarified at consensus meetings. First, the Danish version was validated against the original English version, which was considered the gold standard, as Denmark does not use ICD-11 or DSM. Two authors rated the patients with the Danish and the English versions interchangeably. Subsequently, inter-rater reliability was measured by researchers using only the Danish version. Validation and inter-rater reliability were calculated using Krippendorff's alpha.Results
A total of 80 patients (60 for validation and 20 for inter-rater reliability) were included. Validation against the English version yielded 0.98 (0.95-0.99), and inter-rater reliability of the Danish BFCRS yielded 0.97 (0.95-0.99). Patients with catatonia (n = 38) had a median score of 8 (IQR 5.25-10.75) on the Danish BFCRS.Discussion/conclusion
The Danish version of the BFCRS demonstrated high validity and inter-rater reliability comparable to the original version of the BFCRS. The Danish BFCRS may improve recognition and timely diagnosis of catatonia, supporting better patient outcomes.