Assessing Cognitive Capacity for Participation in a Research Study

Kathleen M. Nokes and Peter C. Nwakeze
Additional contact information
Kathleen M. Nokes: Hunter College, City University of New York
Peter C. Nwakeze: Hunter College, City University of New York

Clinical Nursing Research, 2007, vol. 16, issue 4, 336-349

Abstract: To give informed consent in research, persons must be mentally capable of understanding the study, risks, and benefits. An objective screening tool may assess cognitive capacity better than brief conversations or clinician input. The purpose is to explore the validity of the Mental Alternations Test (MAT) to assess the cognitive capacity of older (ages 50 years +) HIV+ persons ( N = 81). Descriptive correlational quantitative method was used. About 12% of the sample was cognitively impaired. Contrary to expectations, primary language was the only variable with a significant relationship with the MAT ( r = -.22, p = .02); there were no significant relationships between the MAT and age, education, alcohol, smoking, injection drug use, street or mind-altering drug use, physical functional status, depressive symptoms, comorbidities, or being diagnosed with AIDS. Our findings suggest caution in using the MAT as an instrument for assessing cognitive impairment in a linguistically diverse population.

Keywords: HIV/AIDS; informed consent; cognitive impairment; Mental Alternations Test; linguistically diverse (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1054773807308764 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:clnure:v:16:y:2007:i:4:p:336-349

DOI: 10.1177/1054773807308764

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Clinical Nursing Research
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().