Concordance Between Subtest-Based and Domain Score-Based Determinations of Cognitive Impairment on the SNSB-II

Clinicians typically use 2 methods to determine impairment in a specific cognitive domain based on the Seoul Neuropsychological Screening Battery, 2nd Edition: (1) identifying impairment when one or more subtests fall below the normal range (< mean -1.5 standard deviation), and (2) using the cognitive domain score. Because agreement between these methods may differ by the severity of cognitive impairment, this study examined their concordance in the overall sample and across Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) levels.

A total of 1,086 patients (age 74.27±9.62 years; education 9.07±4.77 years) were included. Concordance between subtest-based and domain score-based classifications was assessed for each cognitive domain using cross-tabulation analyses and Cohen's kappa statistics. To assess the influence of the severity of cognitive impairment, analyses were conducted across CDR levels.

When impairment was defined as having at least one abnormal subtest, concordance rates were 90.8% for Attention, 88.8% for Language, 84.6% for Visuospatial Function, 74.3% for Memory, and 73.6% for Frontal/Executive Function. In the Frontal/Executive Function domain, requiring 2 or more abnormal subtests increased concordance to 90.9%. CDR subgroup analyses showed that Memory concordance was particularly low in the CDR 0.5 group (65.8%) compared with the CDR 1 (85.5%) and CDR 2 (98.5%) groups.

Concordance between the 2 classification methods was moderately high for Attention, Language, and Visuospatial Function but substantially lower for Memory and Frontal/Executive Function, especially in individuals with mild cognitive impairment. These findings highlight the need to consider both subtest-level performance and domain scores when determining impairment in memory or frontal/executive function.