Item Analysis of the Mini-Memory Test in Elderly Psychiatric Patients

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: Analyses of the 24 items of the Mini-Memory Test (MiMeT) using the item response theory. METHODS: Item difficulty and item discrimination of all items were evaluated with the 2-parametric logistic model in elderly psychiatric patients with memory impairment (n=332, 48.4%) and without (n=354, 51.6%). The BILOG 3 for Windows was employed for the analysis. RESULTS: The mean item difficulty (+/-SD) was -0.878 (+/-1.176), with range of -3.299~0.902. The mean item discrimination (+/-SD) was -1.051(+/-0.392), ranging from 0.346 to 1.848. Discriminations of 19 items were above appropriate level and the delayed recall of short story items of the long-term memory had the highest discrimination. CONCLUSION: All the MiMeT items were thought as having no problems as memory screening test in terms of difficulty and discrimination at the level of p<0.01.