Adaptation and validation into Portuguese language of the six-item cognitive impairment test (6CIT)

• Published in: Aging & mental health Vol. 22; no. 9; pp. 1184 - 1189
• Main Authors: Apóstolo, João Luís Alves, Paiva, Diana dos Santos, Silva, Rosa Carla Gomes da, Santos, Eduardo José Ferreira dos, Schultz, Timothy John
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Routledge 02.09.2018; Taylor & Francis; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Cognition; Cognitive ability; Cognitive impairment; Correlation analysis; Day centers; Dementia; Geriatric psychiatry; Health care; Health services; Impairment; Mini-Mental State Examination; Nursing homes; Older people; Portuguese language; Primary care; Quantitative psychology; Reliability; Screening; six-item cognitive impairment test; Test-Retest reliability; Tests; Validity; dementia; screening; six-item cognitive impairment test; Cognitive impairment
• ISSN: 1360-7863; 1364-6915
• DOI: 10.1080/13607863.2017.1348473

Background: The six-item cognitive impairment test (6CIT) is a brief cognitive screening tool that can be administered to older people in 2-3 min. Objective: To adapt the 6CIT for the European Portuguese and determine its psychometric properties based on a sample recruited from several contexts (nursing homes; universities for older people; day centres; primary health care units). Method: The original 6CIT was translated into Portuguese and the draft Portuguese version (6CIT-P) was back-translated and piloted. The accuracy of the 6CIT-P was assessed by comparison with the Portuguese Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). A convenience sample of 550 older people from various geographical locations in the north and centre of the country was used. Results: The test-retest reliability coefficient was high (r = 0.95). The 6CIT-P also showed good internal consistency (α = 0.88) and corrected item-total correlations ranged between 0.32 and 0.90. Total 6CIT-P and MMSE scores were strongly correlated. The proposed 6CIT-P threshold for cognitive impairment is ≥10 in the Portuguese population, which gives sensitivity of 82.78% and specificity of 84.84%. The accuracy of 6CIT-P, as measured by area under the ROC curve, was 0.91. Conclusion: The 6CIT-P has high reliability and validity and is accurate when used to screen for cognitive impairment.