Performance of the 16-Item Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline for the Elderly (IQCODE) in an Arabic-Speaking Older Population.
OBJECTIVE
The North African and Middle Eastern region has high illiteracy rates among older people, making direct cognitive testing challenging. Validated screening instruments for dementia in Arabic are lacking. We aimed to validate the Arabic version of the 16-item Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline for the Elderly (A-IQCODE 16) for screening for dementia through an informant.


METHODS
236 Lebanese participants older than 65 years, 143 with normal cognition and 93 with mild-to-moderate dementia according to the DSM-IV criteria, and their informants were recruited. Half of the participants had no formal education. Interviewers blinded to the cognitive status of the participants administered the A-IQCODE 16 to the informants. The ability of the A-IQCODE 16 to screen for dementia was evaluated against the DSM-IV diagnoses.


RESULTS
The A-IQCODE 16 had excellent overall predictive power (area under the receiver operator characteristic curve = 0.96). A cutoff point of >3.34 yielded the best sensitivity (92.5%) and specificity (94.4%) for dementia screening. At this cutoff point, the discriminatory ability of the A-IQCODE 16 was comparable between participants with and those without formal education.


CONCLUSIONS
The A-IQCODE 16 is not biased by education and is therefore useful as a brief screening tool for dementia among Arabic-speaking older adults with low education.
Danish Dementia Research Center, Department of Neurology, Neuroscience Center, Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Thien Kieu Thi
TK
Phung
Monique
M
Chaaya
Khalil
K
Asmar
Samir
S
Atweh
Husam
H
Ghusn
Rose Mary
RM
Khoury
Martin
M
Prince
Gunhild
G
Waldemar
D000368:Aged; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003071:Cognition; D003704:Dementia / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D007861:Lebanon; D000067010:Literacy / Q000523:psychology; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014177:Translations