P1‐317: VALIDATION OF THE MILD BEHAVIORAL IMPAIRMENT CHECKLIST (MBI‐C) IN A CLINIC‐BASED SAMPLE

Later life emergent neurospychiatric symptoms (NPS) are now recognized as potential early indicators of dementia. The syndrome of mild behavioural impairment (MBI) defines emergent and sustained NPS in non-demented patients as a potential consequence of neurodegeneration, and a marker of risk for future dementia. The MBI-Checklist (MBI-C) was developed to operationalize MBI, with applicability to pre-dementia populations. Our aim is to validate domains specified a priori in the MBI-C (consisting of apathy, mood and anxiety symptoms, impulse dyscontrol, social cognition, and psychosis)in a clinic sample using exploratory factor analysis. Subjective cognitive decline (SCD, n=69) and MCI (n=108) patients were recruited through a tertiary dementia clinic in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.Factors were obliquely rotated and internal consistency was measured using Cronbach's alpha (STATA v.13). Factors with eigenvalue over one and factor loadings over 0.3 were kept. A five-factor model was found with 29/34 items loading onto factors. Factors followed our hypothesized domains. Apathy consisted of eight items including loss of interest, curiosity, spontaneity, motivation, affection, care, pleasure and appetite (α=0.838). Mood and anxiety consisted of five items including sadness, discouragement, viewing self as a burden, anxiety and tenseness, and excluded anhedonia which loaded on the apathy factor (α=0.743). Impulse dyscontrol consisted of six items including agitation, argumentativeness, impulsivity, impatience, stubbornness and insensitivity (α=0.789). Social cognition consisted of four items including open discussion of private matters, rudeness, lack of social judgement and talking to strangers and excluded insensitivity which loaded on the impulse dyscontrol factor (α=0.609).Psychosis consisted of six items including beliefs about danger, suspiciousness, unrealistic beliefs, hearing voices, seeing imaginary things and trouble regulating behaviour (α=0.679). The MBI-C is a valid five-factor questionnaire in a pre-dementia clinic sample, with most items loading onto the appropriate a priori determined domains. Subsequent steps will include assessing the prognostic utility of MBI-C global and domain scores for incident cognitive decline and dementia.