Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GERIATRIC PSYCHIATRY
Volume 19, Issue 5, Pages 440-448Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/gps.1108
Keywords
Neuropsychiatric Inventory; geriatric psychiatry; factor analysis
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Background: The Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) is an interview-based instrument designed to elicit information from an informal caregiver to evaluate behavioral disturbances in persons with dementia. Minor modifications of this instrument have produced the Neuropsychiatric Inventory-Nursing Home version (NPI-NH), a version specifically designed for interviewing professional care facility staff. The purpose of this investigation is to further understand the psychometric properties of the NPI-NH by examining its reliability, validity, and factor structure in an elderly neuropsychiatric population. Method: Participants were 204 elderly inpatients from a large provincial neuropsychiatric hospital in British Columbia, Canada. Data were collected as part of a patient needs assessment project. Results: The internal consistency reliability of the NPI-NH was alpha = 0.67. An exploratory principal axis analysis with varimax rotation revealed five factors that accounted for 63.2% of the variance. These factors reflect aspects of psychiatric disturbance associated with: (a) Agitation; (b) Mood; (c) Psychosis; (d) Sleep/Motor Activity; and (e) Elevated Behavior. Convergent and discriminant validity of the five factors by correlating them with other behavioral measures was considered satisfactory. Conclusions: These results provide support for the clinical use of the NPI-NH as a screen for neuropsychiatric symptoms in an elderly neuropsychiatric population. However, additional research is encouraged to further evaluate the clinical utility of the NPI-NH in nursing home and inpatient geriatric settings. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.
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