Prospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatr. Sep 22, 2016; 6(3): 358-364
Published online Sep 22, 2016. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v6.i3.358
Agreement and conversion formula between mini-mental state examination and montreal cognitive assessment in an outpatient sample
Luqman Helmi, David Meagher, Edmond O’Mahony, Donagh O’Neill, Owen Mulligan, Sutha Murthy, Geraldine McCarthy, Dimitrios Adamis
Luqman Helmi, Geraldine McCarthy, Dimitrios Adamis, Sligo Medical Academy, NUI Galway and Sligo/Leitrim Mental Health Services, F91 CD34 Sligo, Ireland
David Meagher, Dimitrios Adamis, Cognitive Impairment Research Group, Graduate Entry Medical School, University of Limerick, V94 F858 Limerick, Ireland
David Meagher, Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital Limerick, V94 F858 Limerick, Ireland
Edmond O’Mahony, Donagh O’Neill, Owen Mulligan, Sutha Murthy, Geraldine McCarthy, Dimitrios Adamis, Sligo/Leitrim Mental Health Services, F91 CD34 Sligo, Ireland
Author contributions: All authors contributed to this paper.
Institutional review board statement: The study has been approved from the ethical committee.
Clinical trial registration statement: It is not a clinical trial.
Informed consent statement: Yes. Verbal informed consent.
Conflict-of-interest statement: None.
Data sharing statement: No sharing of data.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dimitrios Adamis, Consultant Psychiatrist, Sligo/Leitrim Mental Health Services, Clarion Rd Sligo, F91 CD34 Sligo, Ireland. dimaadamis@yahoo.com
Telephone: +353-71-9144829 Fax: +353-71-9144177
Received: May 20, 2016
Peer-review started: May 24, 2016
First decision: July 4, 2016
Revised: August 16, 2016
Accepted: August 27, 2016
Article in press: August 29, 2016
Published online: September 22, 2016
Processing time: 122 Days and 10.2 Hours
Abstract
AIM

To explore the agreement between the mini-mental state examination (MMSE) and montreal cognitive assessment (MoCA) within community dwelling older patients attending an old age psychiatry service and to derive and test a conversion formula between the two scales.

METHODS

Prospective study of consecutive patients attending outpatient services. Both tests were administered by the same researcher on the same day in random order.

RESULTS

The total sample (n = 135) was randomly divided into two groups. One to derive a conversion rule (n = 70), and a second (n = 65) in which this rule was tested. The agreement (Pearson’s r) of MMSE and MoCA was 0.86 (P < 0.001), and Lin’s concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) was 0.57 (95%CI: 0.45-0.66). In the second sample MoCA scores were converted to MMSE scores according to a conversion rule from the first sample which achieved agreement with the original MMSE scores of 0.89 (Pearson’s r, P < 0.001) and CCC of 0.88 (95%CI: 0.82-0.92).

CONCLUSION

Although the two scales overlap considerably, the agreement is modest. The conversion rule derived herein demonstrated promising accuracy and warrants further testing in other populations.

Keywords: Mini mental state examination; Montreal cognitive assessment; Cognition; Equation; Assessment; Old age psychiatry

Core tip: In this study we examined the agreement between mini-mental state examination and montreal cognitive assessment in an older population attending mental health service outpatients. Although both scales assess the same construct (cognition) the agreement between them was modest. Further we delivered a conversion rule which can allow conversion of scores between these scales. The converted scores had a high agreement with original ratings. Finally, this new conversion rule was superior to three previously suggested equating rules.