Background: Research collaboration highlight a need for validated tests in other languages than English. Translation and culture adjustments may threaten essential features of the original instrument.
Objective: To assess the internal consistency, inter-rater and test-retest reliability, and construct validity of the Norwegian version of the Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioural Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Screen (ECAS-N).
Methods: Performance of 71 subjects with ALS, 85 healthy controls (HC) and 6 controls with Alzheimer's disease (AD) were assessed with the ECAS-N. Test-retest interval was four months. Internal consistency was evaluated using Cronbach's alpha; reliability was assessed using intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), Cohen's kappa, and Bland Altman plot. Five hypothesis, including the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) screen, was evaluated for construct validity.
Results: ECAS-N total score produced a Cronbach's alpha of 0.65, had excellent inter-rater reliability (ICC = 0.99) and acceptable test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.73). Construct validity analysis suggested valid use of the ECAS-N to distinguish people with ALS-specific cognitive impairment from HC (p = 0.001) and those with AD (p = 0.002). The MoCA and ECAS-N were moderately correlated (r = 0.53).
Conclusion: The ECAS-N has potential to be used by different testers in clinical practice and research to screen patients with ALS who speak Norwegian and for documenting cognitive impairment over time.
Copyright: © 2023 Taule et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.