BioPsychoSocial Assessment Tools for the Elderly - Assessment Summary Sheet Test: Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire (SMSQ) Year: 1975 Domain: Psychological Assessment Tool Category: Mental Health Variations/Translations: N/A Setting: Institutions and community settings Method of Delivery: Administered by a clinician. Description: This test consists of 10 questions drawn form the Mental Status Questionnaire and other tests to measure short and long term memory, orientation, basic knowledge and mathematical skills. Answers are accepted as correct only if all parts are correct since some questions are combined i.e. month, day and year. Errors are counted, as well, unanswered questions are considered errors. This test also considers race and education as factors such that raw scores are corrected to compensate for different educational levels. Education is classified into three levels, and race into two categories. Scoring/Interpretation: White respondents with some high school: zero to two errors = intact functioning, three to four errors = mild impairment, five to seven errors=moderate intellectual impairment, eight to ten errors = severe impairment. One more error is allowed for blacks, and if the respondent had only grade school education. Conversely, one less error is allowed for those who have high school education and beyond. Time to Administer: Approximately two minutes. Availability: Available in source article (Pfeiffer, 1975) and McDowell (2006). Software: N/A Website: N/A Quantitative/Qualitative: Quantitative Validity (Quantitative): The SMSQ was compared with a clinical diagnosis of organic brain syndrome in institutional and community settings. The sensitivity was 68% and specificity 96% in the clinical sample. In the community sample, the specificity was 97% and sensitivity 26%. In a community study, the sensitivity of the SPMSQ was poor (16%) in people ages 65 to 74 and in those with more education (18%). Compared to other tests, the SPMSQ correlated 0.88 and 0.76 with the Mental Status Questionnaire. The SPMQ scores correlated 0.63 with a psychiatric diagnosis of chronic brain syndrome and 0.79 with a clinical dementia rating. Reliability (Quantitative): In two samples, four week test-retest reliabilities were 0.82 and 0.83. Reliability was also examined in 36 long tern care residents. The test-retest reliability at two to four weeks was 0.85 and alpha was 0.83. References: McDowell, I. (2006). Measuring Health: A guide to rating scales and questionnaires 3rd Ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Pfeiffer, E.A., (1975). A Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire for the assessment of organic brain deficit in elderly patients. J Am Geriatr Soc; 23:440. Comments: N/A