Validating the Brief Visuospatial Memory Test-Revised in a Taiwanese Sample

• Main Authors: Yi Ju Tsai, 蔡宜儒
• Other Authors: M. Y. Ho
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/z96neb

碩士 === 長庚大學 === 職能治療學系 === 104 === Background：The Brief Visual Memory Test-Revised (BVMT-R, Benedict, 1997) is a test for concurrently assessing visuospatial learning ability and episodic memory. Evidence suggests that the BVMT-R is useful in detecting memory impairment in a variety of clinical groups. The purpose of this study is to establish preliminary normative data and to examine the psychometric properties for the BVMT-R in a sample of the Taiwanese population. Methods：Three-hundred-and-fifty -four volunteers (177 females), aged between 17 and 75 years (grouping into six 10-year age bands) underwent a battery of neuropsychological tests, including fluid intelligence, visual and verbal memory tests, and tests of executive functions. Some participants (n = 35), who showed evidence of mild cognitive impairment, were allocated to the mild cognitive impaired (MCI) group for testing the accuracy of the BVMT-R. The relationships between age, sex, education, fluid intelligence, and the indices on the BVMT-R were examined by correlation and regression analyses for examining the psychometric properties of the test and for presenting adopted normative data. Results：The performance of the BVMT-R decreased with advancing ages, and female participants consistently performed better than their counterparts on all of the recall indices of the BVMT-R. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated the variance of Recall performance of the BVMT-R were mostly explained by the estimated premorbid fluid intelligence based on age and years of education (> 35%), whereas Sex only accounted for 2% variance of these data. Conclusions：The results of this study offered some empirical evidence for the reliability and validity of the Brief Visuospatial Memory Test-Revised. In addition, the ROC analyses lend further support for using the Total Immediate and Delayed Recall scores of the BVMT-R would be clinically useful for differentiating MCI from normal participants.