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Dementia knowledge assessment scale (DKAS): confirmatory factor analysis and comparative subscale scores among an international cohort
BACKGROUND: Dementia is a life-limiting condition that is increasing in global prevalence in line with population ageing. In this context, it is necessary to accurately measure dementia knowledge across a spectrum of health professional and lay populations with the aim of informing targeted educatio...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5537989/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28760154 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-017-0552-y |
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author | Annear, Michael J. Toye, Chris Elliott, Kate-Ellen J. McInerney, Frances Eccleston, Claire Robinson, Andrew |
author_facet | Annear, Michael J. Toye, Chris Elliott, Kate-Ellen J. McInerney, Frances Eccleston, Claire Robinson, Andrew |
author_sort | Annear, Michael J. |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Dementia is a life-limiting condition that is increasing in global prevalence in line with population ageing. In this context, it is necessary to accurately measure dementia knowledge across a spectrum of health professional and lay populations with the aim of informing targeted educational interventions and improving literacy, care, and support. Building on prior exploratory analysis, which informed the development of the preliminarily valid and reliable version of the Dementia Knowledge Assessment Scale (DKAS), a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed to affirm construct validity and proposed subscales to further increase the measure’s utility for academics and educators. METHODS: A large, de novo sample of 3649 volunteer respondents to a dementia-related online course was recruited to evaluate the performance of the DKAS and its proposed subscales. Respondents represented diverse cohorts, including health professionals, students, and members of the general public. Analyses included CFA (using structural equation modelling), measures of internal consistency (α), and non-parametric tests of subscale correlation (Spearman Correlation) and score differences between cohorts (Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance). RESULTS: Findings of the CFA supported a 25-item, four-factor model for the DKAS with two items removed due to poor performance and one item moved between factors. The resultant model exhibited good reliability (α = .85; ω (h) = .87; overall scale), with acceptable subscale internal consistency (α ≥ .65; subscales). Subscales showed acceptable correlation without any indication of redundancy. Finally, total and DKAS subscale scores showed good discrimination between cohorts of respondents who would be anticipated to hold different levels of knowledge on the basis of education or experience related to dementia. CONCLUSION: The DKAS has been confirmed as a reliable and valid measure of dementia knowledge for diverse populations that is capable of elucidating knowledge characteristics across four coherent domains: 1) Causes and Characteristics, 2) Communication and Behaviour, 3) Care Considerations, and 4) Risks and Health Promotion. Importantly, the four confirmed subscales clearly distinguish between groups who might be expected to hold differing levels of knowledge about dementia, allowing for a fine-grained level of detail to be established when evaluating baseline understanding or knowledge change associated with educational intervention. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5537989 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-55379892017-08-04 Dementia knowledge assessment scale (DKAS): confirmatory factor analysis and comparative subscale scores among an international cohort Annear, Michael J. Toye, Chris Elliott, Kate-Ellen J. McInerney, Frances Eccleston, Claire Robinson, Andrew BMC Geriatr Research Article BACKGROUND: Dementia is a life-limiting condition that is increasing in global prevalence in line with population ageing. In this context, it is necessary to accurately measure dementia knowledge across a spectrum of health professional and lay populations with the aim of informing targeted educational interventions and improving literacy, care, and support. Building on prior exploratory analysis, which informed the development of the preliminarily valid and reliable version of the Dementia Knowledge Assessment Scale (DKAS), a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed to affirm construct validity and proposed subscales to further increase the measure’s utility for academics and educators. METHODS: A large, de novo sample of 3649 volunteer respondents to a dementia-related online course was recruited to evaluate the performance of the DKAS and its proposed subscales. Respondents represented diverse cohorts, including health professionals, students, and members of the general public. Analyses included CFA (using structural equation modelling), measures of internal consistency (α), and non-parametric tests of subscale correlation (Spearman Correlation) and score differences between cohorts (Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance). RESULTS: Findings of the CFA supported a 25-item, four-factor model for the DKAS with two items removed due to poor performance and one item moved between factors. The resultant model exhibited good reliability (α = .85; ω (h) = .87; overall scale), with acceptable subscale internal consistency (α ≥ .65; subscales). Subscales showed acceptable correlation without any indication of redundancy. Finally, total and DKAS subscale scores showed good discrimination between cohorts of respondents who would be anticipated to hold different levels of knowledge on the basis of education or experience related to dementia. CONCLUSION: The DKAS has been confirmed as a reliable and valid measure of dementia knowledge for diverse populations that is capable of elucidating knowledge characteristics across four coherent domains: 1) Causes and Characteristics, 2) Communication and Behaviour, 3) Care Considerations, and 4) Risks and Health Promotion. Importantly, the four confirmed subscales clearly distinguish between groups who might be expected to hold differing levels of knowledge about dementia, allowing for a fine-grained level of detail to be established when evaluating baseline understanding or knowledge change associated with educational intervention. BioMed Central 2017-07-31 /pmc/articles/PMC5537989/ /pubmed/28760154 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-017-0552-y Text en © The Author(s). 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Annear, Michael J. Toye, Chris Elliott, Kate-Ellen J. McInerney, Frances Eccleston, Claire Robinson, Andrew Dementia knowledge assessment scale (DKAS): confirmatory factor analysis and comparative subscale scores among an international cohort |
title | Dementia knowledge assessment scale (DKAS): confirmatory factor analysis and comparative subscale scores among an international cohort |
title_full | Dementia knowledge assessment scale (DKAS): confirmatory factor analysis and comparative subscale scores among an international cohort |
title_fullStr | Dementia knowledge assessment scale (DKAS): confirmatory factor analysis and comparative subscale scores among an international cohort |
title_full_unstemmed | Dementia knowledge assessment scale (DKAS): confirmatory factor analysis and comparative subscale scores among an international cohort |
title_short | Dementia knowledge assessment scale (DKAS): confirmatory factor analysis and comparative subscale scores among an international cohort |
title_sort | dementia knowledge assessment scale (dkas): confirmatory factor analysis and comparative subscale scores among an international cohort |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5537989/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28760154 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-017-0552-y |
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