The Utility of Slums as a Screening Tool Among Nursing Home Residents in Poland: First Results.

Abstract

Introduction The aging of the world population implies challenges in the area of early diagnosis in geriatric psychiatry as well as in general medical practice. Researchers found that the screening tool developed by Saint Louis University detects early cognitive problems, specifically mild cognitive impairments (MCI), missed by other screening tools. Aims To compare the Polish version of SLUMS as a screening instrument with other screening tests mostly used in Poland such as: MMSE or STMS. Methods The cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted. The total sample included 58 nursing home residents with the mean age of 81.74 (± 8.6). According to CDR 32.8% (n=19) of participants fulfill the criteria of dementia, 27.6% (n=16) of MCI and 39.7% (n=23) were considered as healthy. Results The internal consistencies (Crohnbach's a) of the SLUMS test was 0.7031. The average of total SLUMS score were 23.3 in healthy participants, 19.3 in MCI and 13.1 in demented residents. The statistical analysis illustrated that SLUMS differentiate the dementia residents from those considered as MCI (p=0.01), as well as from healthy participant (p=0.0001). Furthermore, it is also useful in conducting the differential diagnosis between MCI and healthy participants (p=0.017), where MMSE does not offer such a possibility (MCI vs healthy, p=0.51) Conclusions It seems that the SLUMS is not just another screening tool that can complement the range of existing cognitive tests in Polish clinical practice. Preliminary statistical analysis demonstrated its superior capabilities in the screening diagnosis compared to most famous test in Poland, MMSE.