Validity and reliability of the Neuropsychological Assessment Battery – Screening Module (S-NAB) in a subset of Malaysian population with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI)

Abstract

This study assessed the validity (construct validity) and reliability (internal consistency) of the Neuropsychological Assessment Battery Screening Module (S-NAB) in detecting mild cognitive deficit/alteration in multicultural, multilingual, and multiethnic mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) population of Malaysia. S-NAB and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) data from 114 patients with mTBI (93 males; 21 females) aged 18 to 60 years old were obtained at University Malaya Medical Center, Malaysia. The mean age was 28.17 ± 8.57 years and mean education years was 12.40 ± 2.01. Convergent validity was assessed between S-NAB domain scores and MoCA total scores by using Pearson’s correlation and internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha. Acceptable internal consistency (α ≥ .70) was found for Attention, Language, and Memory domains but weak internal consistencies (α < .50) were found for Spatial and Executive Function domains. There were positive but weak correlations between S-NAB and MoCA. These findings provide some support for the application of S-NAB in assessing mild cognitive deficits of mTBI population in a Malaysian setting.

Keywords:

• Construct validity
• content validity
• internal consistency
• mild traumatic brain injury
• neuropsychological screening

Declarations

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the High Impact Research under Grant UM.C/625/1/HIR/MOHE/CHAN/12 and Post Graduate Research under Grant (IPPP) PPPC/C1-2016/DGJ/01.