Vers？o brasileira da Escala Cornell de depress？o em demência (Cornell depression scale in dementia)

objective: translating and adapting the cornell scale for depression in dementia to the portuguese language and verifying the interrater and test-retest reliability of the translated and adapted version. method: the cornell scale was translated into portuguese and back translated into english. divergences of translation were identified and discussed, resulting in a version which was submitted to a pre-test for cross-cultural adaptation. the final version was administered to a sample of 29 patients with probable ad and to their caregivers. results: the cornell scale presented good interrater (kappa=0,77; p<0,001) and test-retest reliability (kappa=0,76; p<0,001). the final version was easy to administer and well understood by the caregivers. conclusion: the brazilian version of the cornell scale is an instrument with good reliability to evaluate depression in patients with dementia. this tool will contribute to the evaluation and follow-up of depressed patients with dementia in our population and may also be used in multicentric studies with brazilian population.