Initial Validity and Reliability of the Portuguese Borg Rating of Perceived Exertion 6-20 Scale

The aims of this study were to perform the cross-cultural adaptation of the Borg Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) 6-20 Scale to Brazilian Portuguese language and to start testing its validity and reliability. After performing the cross-cultural adaptation of the Scale, concurrent and discriminative validity, and reliability were determined on a treadmill in young (18-30 years) and older adult women (60-75 years). Considering young and older adult women, RPE presented high and moderate positive correlation with heart rate and high and low positive correlation with oxygen consumption, respectively. Older adult women presented RPE (11 +/- 2) significantly higher than young ones (8 +/- 1) exercising at the same absolute intensity. Intraclass coefficient correlation was excellent for RPE to young and older adult women. The Scale presented concurrent validity only to young adult women, whereas it presented discriminative validity between such groups of women. Moreover, the scale is reliable to young and older adult women.