Reliability and validity of the telephone version of the Cantonese Mini-mental State Examination (T-CMMSE) when used with elderly patients with and without dementia in Hong Kong.

Background: The objectives of this study were to examine the reliability and validity of a 26-point telephone version of the Cantonese Mini-mental State Examination (T-CMMSE) for a sample of 65 elderly patients, comprising 31 patients without dementia and 34 patients with dementia, in an acute regional hospital in Hong Kong, and to identify an optimal cut-off score to discriminate between those patients with dementia and those without.

Methods: Participants were rated by using the face-to-face Mini-mental State Examination (MMSE) before inpatient discharge and the T-CMMSE after inpatient discharge, and were rated separately by two raters in two telephone follow-up sessions using the T-CMMSE.

Results: The results of the study indicated that the scale had excellent inter-and intra-rater reliabilities.