German version of the engagement of a person with dementia scale: translation and initial application experiences

Assessment tools for engagement in people with dementia often rely on self-reported measures which restricts their use in people with severe cognitive limitations. The Engagement of a Person with Dementia Scale (EPWDS) is a valid and reliable tool to assess behavioral and emotional expressions and responses of engagement in people with dementia through observation; however, the EPWDS is not yet available in the German language.

1) Translation and cross-culturally adaptation of the original English version of the EPWDS into the German language (EPWDS-GER) and 2) to gain insights into assessing data with the newly developed instrument.

International recommendations were followed to cross-culturally adapt the English original version of the EPWDS into the German language in 5 steps: translation by three independent translators, synthesis, back translation, expert committee review (N = 10) and test of the prefinal version in nursing practice (N = 22) on a 5-point Likert scale to assess comprehensibility, practicability and suitability of the EPWDS-GER.

The EPWDS-GER achieved high ratings for the five subscales on ease of understanding, ease of answering and importance of single items for assessing engagement. Average agreement for all items ranged from 3.86 to 4.43 (SD = 0.68-1.29). Overall rating of EPWDS-GER resulted in a mean agreement of 4.18 (SD = 0.73) for suitability and of 4.09 (SD = 0.81) for practicability.

The EPWDS-GER is an easy to use tool for measuring behavioral and emotional expressions and responses of engagement of a person with dementia and can now be utilized in clinical practice and research.