Validity and reliability of the Brazilian version of the Cognitive Reserve Assessment Scale in Health

Abstract

Cognitive reserve; Cognition; Validation study

Reserva cognitiva; Cognición; Estudio de validación

Reserva cognitiva; Cognició; Estudi de validació

OBJECTIVE: As the older population increases, it is important to identify factors that may reduce the risks of dementia in the general population. One such factor is the concept of cognitive reserve (CR). The present study analyzed the psychometric properties of the Cognitive Reserve Assessment Scale in Health (CRASH) in the Brazilian population. This scale was originally developed to measure CR in individuals with severe mental illness. We also investigated the relationship between the CRASH and clinical or sociodemographic variables. METHODS: This study was conducted with 398 individuals. We assessed sociodemographic variables and depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms (Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale [DASS-21]) using a web-based survey. We constructed a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) model in order to test the goodness of fit of the factor structure proposed in the original CRASH study. RESULTS: The McDonald's hierarchical ω for CRASH using CFA parameters was 0.61, and the Cronbach's alpha coefficient indicated good internal consistency when considering all items (alpha = 0.7). CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that CRASH can be used to assess CR in the general population in Brazil.

This work has received financial support from Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), and was financed in part by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES), Finance Code 001. SA has been supported by a Sara Borrell contract (CD20/00177) funded by Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) and co-funded by the European Social Fund "Investing in your future." EV has received funding from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (PI15/00283; PI21/00787) integrated into the Plan Nacional de I+D+I and was co-funded by ISCIII-Subdirección General de Evaluación y el Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER), Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental (CIBERSAM), the Comissionat per a Universitats i Recerca del DIUE de la Generalitat de Catalunya to the Bipolar Disorders Group (2017 SGR 1365), and project SLT006/17/00357 from Pla Estratègic de Recerca i Innovació en Salut (PERIS) 2016-2020 (Departament de Salut), Centres de Recerca de Catalunya (CERCA) Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya. DBS has received financial support from Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul (FAPERGS). JFG has received financial support from CAPES. ARR has received financial support from CNPq for the PQ 2019 productivity scholarship 302382/2019-4.