2023 American Academy of Neurology Abstract Website

Francesco Sacca¹, Teresa Costabile², Elisabetta Signoriello², Francesca Lauro¹, Manuela Altieri², Antonio Rosario Ziello³, Alessandro d'Ambrosio², Alvino Bisecco², Giorgia Teresa Maniscalco³, Simona Bonavita², Antonio Gallo², Vincenzo Brescia Morra¹, Giacomo Lus², Cinzia Valeria Russo¹
¹University Federico II, ²University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, ³“A. Cardarelli” Hospital

Objective:

Aim of our study was to develop a tablet version of Brief International Cognitive Assessment for Multiple Sclerosis (iBICAMS), and to assess its reliability compared to the paper version.

Background:

The BICAMS is the most widely used screening tool for cognitive impairment in Multiple Sclerosis (MS). However, the administration and scoring procedures of the paper version are time consuming and prone to errors.

Design/Methods:

We administered both BICAMS and iBICAMS to 139 MS patients in two different sessions. We compared scores on both versions using a paired t-test. We used a repeated measures ANOVA to test the impact of rater, order of administration and test-retest time on test-retest performances. We used the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) to assess the reliability between BICAMS and iBICAMS.

Results:

All three sub-tests of the BICAMS (SDMT, CVLT-II and BVMT-R) were different between the paper and the tablet versions. Order of administration influenced test-retest performances at the SDMT (p<0.001), CVLT- II (p<0.001) and BVMT-R (p<0.001). Intraclass coefficient correlation (ICC) revealed a high level of agreement between the paper BICAMS and the iPad version for all three tests: SDMT (0.92), CVLT-II (0.83) and BVMT-R (0.82).

Conclusions:

Results suggest that using the iBICAMS guarantees a better adherence to standardized procedures in both administration and scoring phase of tests. The high reliability between the two versions and the inherent advantages of automated scoring, favor the iBICAMS as the most appropriate method.