Development and Assessment of a Brief Screening Tool for Psychosis in Dementia

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-31-2021

Publication Title

Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association

Volume

17

First page number:

e057766

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Hallucinations and delusions associated with dementia-related psychosis (DRP) can occur in persons with dementia-however, quickly screening for these symptoms in busy clinical settings can be challenging. We developed the DRP3 Screen, a novel tool to screen for psychosis in clinical settings; performed an Alignment Exercise to determine association of the DRP3 Screen with established psychosis/DRP reference assessments; and retrospectively assessed the ability of the DRP3 Screen to detect patients with DRP enrolled in a clinical trial (HARMONY, NCT03325556). METHODS: The DRP3 Screen comprises 3 yes/no questions and was developed by Acadia Pharmaceuticals Inc. in collaboration with an international team of six subject matter experts (SMEs). Through facilitated discussions, the panel developed questions addressing key aspects of psychosis in dementia. SMEs independently rated level of alignment (Table) of the questions with current reference assessments (SAPS-H+D, NPI-Q, IPA Criteria) to determine if the symptoms itemized in those assessments would be captured by ≥1 DRP3 Screen question. Criteria for association with a reference assessment item was mean rating ≥2.0 for at least one DRP3 Screen question (95% CI, lower limit ≥1.3). Inter-rater reliability of the Alignment Exercise for individual reference assessments was assessed using Fleiss' kappa statistic. For retrospective application of the DRP3 Screen to HARMONY, patients were considered likely to have been identified by the DRP3 Screen if they were positive (score ≥2) on ≥1 SAPS-H+D items that were positively associated with the DRP3 Screen. RESULTS: All items across 3 reference assessments (except SAPS-H+D D6, somatic delusions) were associated with the DRP3 Screen. Mean level of alignment segregated to none/some (0.3-1.8) and most/all (2.3-3.0) with significant inter-rater agreement of the DRP3 Screen with the SAPS-H+D, NPI-Q and IPA Criteria, (kappa values: 0.37, 0.26, and 0.45, respectively; p<.0001). Retrospective application of the DRP3 Screen to HARMONY identified all trial enrollees. CONCLUSIONS: The novel DRP3 Screen is a brief tool designed to assess the presence of hallucinations and delusions in persons with dementia. Potential for its clinical application has been established through association with current reference assessments, with significant agreement among raters; and through successful retrospective application to an existing trial population.

Controlled Subject

Dementia

Disciplines

Cognitive Neuroscience

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