Reliability, validity and correlative factors of the Chinese Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT)

Objective To analyze reliability, validity and the correlative factors of the Chinese Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT).Methods Fifty healthy subjects were assessed with PASAT, MMSE, Hamilton Depression Rating Scale(HAMD) ,the Fatigue Severity Scale and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index( PSQI).After(7 ±2) days of the initial assessment,20 of the subjects were enrolled in the test-retest reliability and scorer reliability test,and 40 were taken into the construct validity test which included other 10 neuropsychological tests such as the Prospective Memory Test,the Chinese Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test,the Symbol Digit Modalities Test,the Trail Making Test and so on.Results The internal consistency reliability ( cronbach' s α = 0.900 ),test-retest reliability ( ICC = 0.837, P = 0.000), score reliability ( ICC = 0.999, P = 0.000) of the Chinese PA-SAT were generally high.Practice effect were observed in short term ( Z = -3.304, P= 0.001 ).Executive function,working memory,verbal memory, time based prospective memory and the ability of logic reasoning were involved to complete the task of PASAT.There was a significant positive correlation of the PASAT results and the education years( r=0.582, P=0.000).Conclusion The Chinese PASAT has good reliability and validity for Chinese young and middle-aged people.Years of education and the Chinese PASAT were significantly related.On the other hand, the relationship of the Chinese PASAT and other factors, such as age and gender, should be further explored in future. Key words: PASAT;  Reliability Analysis;  Validity Analysis;  Correlative factors