Validation of the Spanish version of the Pediatric Asthma Severity Score (PASS) in a population of Hispanic children

Abstract Background The Pediatric Asthma Severity Score (PASS) is one of the most‐used clinical scoring systems for assessing the severity of asthma exacerbations in children. The aim of the present study was to validate a Spanish version of the PASS in a population of Hispanic children with asthma exacerbations living in urban Bogota, Colombia. Methods In a prospective cohort and a validation study, parents/caregivers of children between 2 and 18 years old attended in the emergency department (ED) with asthma exacerbations who were admitted to the inpatient unit were invited to participate in the study. During the hospitalization period, we gathered the necessary data for assessing the criterion validity (comparing its score with the Pediatric Respiratory Assessment Measure PRAM), construct validity, interrater reliability, responsiveness, and internal consistency of the Col‐PASS, the Colombian version of the PASS. Results At baseline, the scores of the Col‐PASS correlated positively with the scores of the PRAM score ( ρ = 0.588, p < .001). The baseline Col‐PASS scores in patients who required admission to a more complex service were significantly higher than those in patients who presented clinical improvement (1.0 (0.0–2.0) vs. 0.0 (0.0–0.0), p < .001). The interrater reliability was found to be κ = 0.897, 95% CI 0.699–1.000, p < .001. Cronbach's α was .701 for the questionnaire as a whole. Conclusion The Col‐PASS has excellent construct validity, adequate criterion validity, interrater reliability, responsiveness; and acceptable internal consistency when used in children between 2 and 18 years old with asthma exacerbations.