[Validation of RUDAS: A screening tool for dementia in Primary Health Care settings]

To validate Rowland Dementia Assessment Scale (RUDAS), as an instrument for the screening of people with dementia and cognitive impairment in Primary Health Care (PHC). RUDAS is a brief cognitive test, appropriate for people with minimum completed level of education and easily adaptable to multicultural contexts. For these reason it could be a good instrument for dementia screening in PHC.

Cross-sectional descriptive epidemiological study with a five-year follow up.

O Grove PHC centre, Galicia, Spain (covering a population of 10,650 individuals).

RUDAS; Mini Mental State Examination; Clinical Dementia Rating; Katz, Barthel and Lawton Indexes; MMSE and Yesavage Geriatric Depression Scale.

A total of 150 older adults (mean age 76.35±7.12years) randomly selected, from a low sociocultural and economical background and mainly rural and semirural origin.

RUDAS viability in PHC was checked, and its psychometric properties assessed: reliability, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values.

RUDAS application was brief (7.58±2.10min) and well accepted. RUDAS area under receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve for the detection of dementia was 0.983 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.97-1.00) for an optimal cut-off point of 22.5, with sensitivity of 89.3%, and a specificity of 100%. Area under ROC curve for discriminating dementia from mild cognitive impairment was 0.965 (95%CI: 0.91-1.00).

RUDAS test is fit for dementia screening in PHC and it is especially sensitive to discriminate PWD from people with MCI.