Correlation of Depression and Anxiety Responses on the Mild Behavioral Impairment Checklist With the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia and Abbreviated Version of the Penn State Worry Questionnaire.

Introduction: Cognitive disorders are often accompanied by depression and anxiety. The Mild Behavioral Impairment Checklist (MBI-C) was developed to capture neuropsychiatric symptoms that predict risk for dementia and includes questions on mood, but has not been validated for identifying significant depression or anxiety symptoms. Our objective was to determine whether MBI-C mood domain scores predict responses on 2 previously validated scales: the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia (CSDD) and the Penn State Worry Questionnaire-Abbreviated version (PSWQ-A) scales.

Methods: We performed a cross-sectional analysis of consenting patients from a memory clinic who completed the MBI-C along with the CSDD (n=80) or PSWQ-A (n=92).

Results: MBI-C mood scores and the MBI-C depression subscore were moderately to strongly correlated with the CSDD (r=0.72) and the PSWQ-A (r=0.66). An MBI-C mood score of ≥5 or anxiety or depression subscore ≥2 predicted clinically relevant depressive and anxiety symptoms on the CSDD and PSWQ, respectively, with AUCs between 0.80 and 0.85.

Conclusions: This study supports the MBI-C mood score as a valid tool for screening for mood-related neuropsychiatric symptoms in individuals with cognitive impairment.