Montreal Cognitive Assessment: Exploring the impact of demographic variables, internal consistency reliability and discriminant validity in a South African sample

African Journal of Psychological Assessment

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Montreal Cognitive Assessment: Exploring the impact of demographic variables, internal consistency reliability and discriminant validity in a South African sample
 
Creator Kirkbride, Elisabeth Ferreira-Correia, Aline Sibandze, Mlinganisi
 
Subject Psychology HAD; HAND; HIV; Montreal Cognitive Assessment; psychometrics; screening
Description The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is widely used to screen for cognitive impairment and has shown a good capacity to identify cognitive impairment. However, its psychometric properties have not been sufficiently studied in the South African context. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate (1) the influence of demographic variables (age, years of education, and gender) on total MoCA scores; (2) the internal consistency reliability of the test and (3) the discriminant validity of the total MoCA score. This study analysed secondary quantitative data, utilising a cross-sectional, between-subjects design. All participants completed the English MoCA version 8.1. The control sample (n = 89) included healthy South African adults who speak English as a second or third language and who have been educated in public schools. The clinical sample (n = 83) included patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and a comorbid disorder, either psychiatric (n = 70) or neurocognitive (n = 13). Total MoCA scores were significantly correlated with years of education (p 0.001) and age (p = 0.007) but not gender. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.64 revealing moderate internal consistency. The total MoCA score was not a significant predictor of diagnostic status, indicating poor discriminant validity of the MoCA in this sample. The MoCA appears not to be a useful screening or diagnostic tool in samples with similar characteristics.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2022-02-24
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Secondary analysis; quantitative; non-experimental; ex-post facto; cross-sectional; between-subjects
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/ajopa.v4i0.73
 
Source African Journal of Psychological Assessment; Vol 4 (2022); 9 pages 2617-2798 2707-1618
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://ajopa.org/index.php/ajopa/article/view/73/280 https://ajopa.org/index.php/ajopa/article/view/73/281 https://ajopa.org/index.php/ajopa/article/view/73/282 https://ajopa.org/index.php/ajopa/article/view/73/283
 
Coverage South Africa — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2022 Elisabeth Kirkbride, Aline Ferreira-Correia, Mlinganisi Sibandze https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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