Norms of Hong Kong Brief Cognitive Test and the Utility for Screening Cognitive Impairment Among Chinese Older Adults

OBJECTIVE: To establish the norms of the Hong Kong Brief Cognitive Test (HKBC) among Chinese older adults and to examine its utility for differentiating neurocognitive disorders from cognitively normal controls. METHODS: Two thousand three hundred twelve participants aged 40 years and above were recruited from six regions of China as the norm construction sample. 93 normal participants and 246 cognitive impairment patients were included for diagnostic test of HKBC. Based on the multinomial regression model, which analyzed the relationship between HKBC score and demographic information, the norm of HKBC score and converted T score (HKBC-T) were constructed. The ROC curve of HKBC-T was depicted to calculate the optimal cutoff value of screening cognitive impairment. RESULTS: The results showed that HKBC score was negatively correlated with age (SE = -5.48, p < 0.001) and positive correlation with education (SE = 1.53, p < 0.001), with no significant association with gender and living area. The AUC value of HKBC-T is 0.85 in distinguishing cognitive impairment and normal older adults. The optimal cutoff value was 45.79 points, achieving a sensitivity of 91.4% and a specificity of 66.7%. CONCLUSION: Age and education must be adjusted when creating the HKBC norms. The HKBC-T is promising in detecting cognitive impairment at the population level.