Feasibility and Psychometric Properties of Integrated Care for Older People Screening Tool for Taiwanese (ICOPES-TW) Cognitive Screening Test

Background: Intrinsic capacity, a concept proposed by the World Health Organization, includes multidimensions to better understand older adults' health conditions for successful healthy aging. One of the key dimensions of intrinsic capacity is cognition. The present study aimed to examine if the cognitive test in Integrated Care for Older People Screening Tool for Taiwanese (ICOPES-TW) is a suitable instrument for screening cognition impairment.

Methods: Older adults from community or medical center settings in Tainan were recruited (n = 553; mean ± SD age = 75.80 ± 8.32; 60.8% females). All participants were administered the ICOPES-TW cognitive test, the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL), and Barthel Index (BI) in an in-person interview conducted by a well-trained research assistant.

Results: The ICOPES-TW cognitive test was highly correlated with the MMSE total score (r = -0.752) and moderately correlated with IADL (r = -0.426) and BI scores (r = -0.390). When using a cutoff score of 1 for the ICOPES-TW cognitive test, its accuracy to identify cognitive impairment defined by the MMSE was 60% (sensitivity = 0.98, specificity = 0.41). When using cutoff score of 2, the accuracy was 83% (sensitivity = 0.69, specificity = 0.90). Moreover, the ICOPES-TW cognitive test had similar properties to the MMSE in terms of known-group validity (distinguishing different age and educational level groups).

Conclusions: Using ICOPES-TW cognitive test with appropriate cutoff point in different healthcare settings could help providers and researchers quickly identify if an older adult has a cognitive impairment. However, the screening ability of ICOPES-TW cognitive test was deemed fair but future studies are recommended to help improve it.