Dementia knowledge among general practitioners: first results and psychometric properties of a new instrument.
BACKGROUND
General practitioners (GPs) play an important role in dementia care. Sufficient knowledge is one of the prerequisites for adequate dementia management, and educational activities do include knowledge transfer. There is no up-to-date measure of GPs' knowledge of dementia, resulting in the use of unreliable ad hoc questionnaires in recent studies, thus increasing the risk of biased results.


METHODS
In a cross-sectional, observational questionnaire study, 292 German GPs answered 37 questions regarding factual dementia knowledge. For the purpose of cross-validation, the psychometric properties of the test and its associations with GP characteristics were analyzed in independent samples with item and regression analyses.


RESULTS
Twenty questions constituted a reliable questionnaire (Cohen's alpha = 0.733) with a normal distribution of test scores. Linear regression analysis revealed significant associations of the knowledge test score with the GPs' age and their attitudes towards dementia.


CONCLUSIONS
The newly developed dementia-knowledge test for GPs can be used in observational studies, in which a rough and easy to use instrument is required.
Pentzek
Michael
M
Department of General Practice, University Medical Center, Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf, Germany. Pentzek@med.uni-duesseldorf.de
Abholz
Heinz-Harald
HH
Ostapczuk
Martin
M
Altiner
Attila
A
Wollny
Anja
A
Fuchs
Angela
A
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D017028:Caregivers / Q000523:psychology; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010821:Physicians, Family / Q000193:education; D011368:Professional-Family Relations; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014342:Truth Disclosure