Comparison of Diagnostic Validities between MMSE-K and K-MMSE for Screening of Dementia / 신경정신의학

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to compare the diagnostic validities between the Korean version of Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE-K) and the Korean MMSE (K-MMSE) for screening of dementia and to investigate the possible changes of optimal cutoff scores of each instrument according to age, gender, and educational level. METHODS: 746 community residents aged 65 or over in two areas of Kwangju, Republic of Korea were assessed with MMSE-K and K-MMSE and were also evaluated for the diagnoses of dementia (DSM-IV). RESULTS: The performances, measured by area under receiver operating characteristics curve, of MMSE-K and K-MMSE against DSM-IV dementia were 0.93 and 0.94 respectively. The optimal cutoff scores for screening of dementia were 21|22 in MMSE-K and 17|18 in K-MMSE. Changes of the optimal cutoff scores according to age, gender, and educational level of the sample were 0-2 in the MMSE-K and 2-5 in the K-MMSE. CONCLUSIONS: MMSE-K and K-MMSE could be used for screening of dementia with excellent validities. For primary health care staff, however, it was suggested that MMSE-K would be more feasible than K-MMSE because the former had less changes in the optimal cutoff scores and was easier to interpret its results than the latter.