Development and content validity of the Brazilian Brief Neuropsychological Assessment Battery Neupsilin

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to present the process of construction and content validity of the Brazilian Brief Neuropsychological Assessment Battery Neupsilin, developed to briefly examine the neuropsychological profile of both clinical and healthy populations. It evaluates time and spatial orientation, attention, perception, memory, arithmetic abilities, language, praxia and executive functions (problem solving and verbal fluency). The process of construction was based on psychometric procedures: 1) construction of a preliminary version of the instrument, founded on clinical and research experience of the three specialists, as well as on research on the literature and on already available instruments; 2) blind judges' analyses: a) an analysis of the importance of the inclusion of each subtest considering the assessed construct and the instrument's goal, b) an analysis of the adequacy of each item regarding the construct; 3) reformulation of the instrument; 4) semantic analysis of the items and brainstorming; 5) final analysis done by three specialist judges; 6) pilot study and final version, and 7) content validity. Modifications were done in each stage of the development of the Neupsilin. It demonstrated adequate content validity, with advantages and limitations.