The Six Item Cognitive Impairment Test (6-CIT) as a screening test for dementia: comparison with Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE).
BACKGROUND
The UK national Dementia Strategy clearly outlines a case for early detection and diagnosis of dementia. There is thus a need for a brief screening test for dementia in primary care, which can be administered and scored easily.


OBJECTIVE
To compare the performance of two cognitive scales, Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and 6 Item Cognitive Impairment Test (6-CIT), as screening test for dementia in a naturalistic setting.


METHODS
209 subjects referred to Old Age Psychiatry service were retrospectively studied. Their MMSE and 6-CIT scores were used to compare sensitivity, specificity and the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) Curves for diagnosis of dementia.


RESULTS
The correlation between the MMSE score and 6-CIT score is - 0.822. The MMSE has a sensitivity of 79.7% and specificity of 86.4% (cut-off 23/24). The 6-CIT has a sensitivity and specificity of 82.5% and 90.9% respectively (cut-off 10/11). The sensitivity of the 6-CIT increases to 90.2% at a lower cut-off of 9/10, but the corresponding specificity drops to 83.3%.


CONCLUSIONS
The 6-CIT is a brief and simple test of cognition, which correlates reasonably well with the MMSE in a naturalistic setting. Compared with the MMSE it performs well as a screening instrument for dementia, which makes it a more appropriate test for primary care usage.
Upadhyaya
Ajaya K
AK
Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, Hertford, Hertfordshire, UK. ajayaup@aol.com
Rajagopal
Magesh
M
Gale
Tim M
TM
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D010054:Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale; D003071:Cognition; D003704:Dementia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D042241:Early Diagnosis; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011320:Primary Health Care; D012372:ROC Curve; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity