Highlights
- •The BICAMS is the most widely used screening tool for cognitive impairment in MS
- •We developed a tablet version of the BICAMS (iBICAMS)
- •The iBICAMS showed a high reliability over the paper version
- •iBICAMS could become a standard in clinical practice for cognitive assessment of MS
Abstract
Background
The Brief International Cognitive Assessment for Multiple Sclerosis (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. Aim of our study was to develop a tablet version of BICAMS (iBICAMS),
and to assess its reliability compared to the paper version.
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
We found a high reliability between BICAMS and iBICAMS. Considering the inherent advantages
of automated scoring, digital storage of data, standardized timing, the iBICAMS could
become a standard in clinical practice.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: April 17, 2023
Accepted:
April 16,
2023
Received in revised form:
April 2,
2023
Received:
January 20,
2023
Footnotes
☆Statements and Declarations: The study was supported by Roche S.p.A., Monza, Italy.
Identification
Copyright
© 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
