Association between recognizing dementia as a mental illness and dementia knowledge among elderly Chinese Americans

Table 1 Association between dementia knowledge questionnaire items and perception of dementia as a mental illness

Knowledgecategory		Questions	True/false	Answered yes to “dementia is a chronic mental illness” (n = 91)	Answered no to “dementia is a chronic mental illness” (n = 225)	P	χ2
General	1	Dementia is forgetfulness due to aging. Everyone will have dementia with advancing age	F	29 (31.9)	92 (40.9)	0.135	2.231
General	2	Dementia is a disease affecting the brain. Not everyone will suffer from dementia	T	88 (96.7)	207 (92.0)	0.129	2.310
General	3	Risk of dementia increases with age	T	85 (93.4)	190 (84.4)	0.032	4.609
General	4	Senescence forgetfulness progresses with advancing age, resulting in patients being unable to recognize their families	F	65 (71.4)	184 (81.8)	0.042	4.154
Symptoms	5	Dementia is defined as a reduction of cognitive abilities including understanding and judgment, as well as memory loss	T	88 (96.7)	188 (83.6)	0.002	10.131
Treatment	6	Some types of dementia are treatable	T	56 (61.5)	114 (50.7)	0.079	3.081
Symptoms	7	People suffering dementia become unable to perform familiar tasks at once	F	36 (39.6)	87 (38.7)	0.883	0.022
Symptoms	8	People suffering from dementia become unable to recognize time, place, and person at once	F	25 (27.5)	68 (30.2)	0.627	0.236
Cause	9	Some types of dementia are caused by cerebrovascular diseases	T	41 (45.1)	63 (28.0)	0.004	8.536
Cause	10	Some types of dementia are hereditary	T	57 (62.6)	136 (60.4)	0.717	0.131
Prognosis	11	Dementia shortens life expectancy after onset	T	42 (46.2)	72 (32.0)	0.018	5.629
	Total score			6.7 ± 1.61	6.2 ± 1.71	0.018	t = 2.39

T: True; F: False.