The Structured Interview for Insight and Judgment in Dementia: Development and validation of a new instrument to assess awareness in patients with dementia

INTRODUCTION: Poor insight about their cognitive and functional deficits is highly prevalent in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD); however, there is a lack of reliable, valid instrumentation to measure this construct. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a semistructured interview to assess insight and judgment in patients with AD and to provide information regarding the assessment of competency and risk in this population. METHODS: We validated the Structured Clinical Interview for Insight and Judgment in Dementia (SIJID) in a consecutive series of 124 patients with probable AD. The following psychometric properties were evaluated: internal consistency, test-retest reliability, interrater reliability, and convergent and predictive validity. RESULTS: The SIJID demonstrated high test-retest, interrater reliability and also showed strong discriminant and convergent validity. It showed good predictive validity based on 1-year follow-up information of the patient's clinical outcomes, with a significant association between higher SIJID total scores at baseline, and more severe neuropsychiatric symptoms and more severe caregiver distress at follow-up. Moreover, higher scores of dangerous behaviors at baseline were significantly correlated with a higher frequency of hospitalization and placement in residential care 1 year later. CONCLUSION: The SIJID is a reliable and valid instrument to assess insight and judgment in patients with AD and is a valuable tool for assessing presence and severity of dangerous behaviors, determining risk, and providing critical information for the assessment of competency.