Japanese-language Dementia Knowledge Assessment Scale: Psychometric performance, and health student and professional understanding

Aim: Dementia prevalence is accelerating internationally commensurate with population aging. Super-aging countries, including Japan, will experience growing prevalence of this life-limiting condition in the coming decades as a result of falling fertility and mortality. The authors developed and verified a Japanese translation of the Dementia Knowledge Assessment Scale (DKAS-J) to address the paucity of reliable and valid Japanese-language measures, and to elucidate current understanding.

Methods: The present study was designed as exploratory research across five universities in Japan. The Dementia Knowledge Assessment Scale was translated into Japanese by a native speaker and bilingual physician with back-translation carried out to ensure consistency of meaning. Between January and April 2016, the DKAS-J was administered to 185 health students, academics and health professionals from the disciplines of nursing, medicine and allied health in the regions of Kyushu, Kansai and Tohoku.

Results: The DKAS-J showed face and content validity, acceptable internal consistency (α = 0.79) and adequate sensitivity (discrimination between health professionals and health students). A principal components analysis confirmed that an 18-item iteration of the DKAS-J performed optimally as a unidimensional scale. The results of DKAS-J administration showed low levels of dementia knowledge among participants, with particularly poor understanding related to the clinical course of the syndrome, symptomatology and the efficacy of pharmaceutical intervention for behavioral symptoms.

Conclusion: The DKAS-J provides a useful tool for conceptualizing baseline knowledge, changes in understanding and knowledge deficits. Such a measure will prove valuable for the design and development of educational interventions as dementia increases in Japan and worldwide.