Norms and reliability for the Spanish version of the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) Form A

Abstract

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia in the adult population. Tools capable of detecting predementia and established diagnoses of dementia are very important for assessing these patients. The Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) is a brief neuropsychological battery that has been successful at detecting cognitive impairment in degenerative and nondegenerative neurological diseases. The objective of this study was to test reliability and sensibility and obtain normative data of a Spanish adaptation of the RBANS. In this study, 50 participants with AD and 336 healthy participants stratified according to the Spanish Census, with different levels of education, were tested with the RBANS (Form A). Descriptive analyses were performed on a pilot sample from the general population, and comparative analyses were performed on data from the two samples. We obtained an overall reliability coefficient (Cronbach’s alpha) of .92. RBANS showed strong specificity and moderately low sensitivity. Participants in the AD group performed significantly worse on most subtests than control participants. Implications with regard to the specificity and sensitivity of the Spanish version of the RBANS are discussed.

Keywords:

• Alzheimer disease
• Assessment
• Norms
• Spanish
• Elderly

We would like to thank the Memory Unit of the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau in Barcelona and all of the volunteers who participated in this research.

This study was supported in part by EU-Spain [grant number AYA2010-18753].