Pilot of a new Somali cognitive assessment tool

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Pilot of a new cognitive assessment tool for detecting dementia in the migrant Somali population

• IRAS ID

  299321

• Contact name

  Louise Mahon

• Contact email

  louise.mahon@gmmh.nhs.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust

• Duration of Study in the UK

  0 years, 10 months, 31 days

• Research summary

  Research Summary

  Aims
  • We want to find out if the tool that we have made to assess memory and thinking in Somali elders ( the 'MSCAT') is acceptable to that community and practical to administer and score.
  • The public will benefit from this research because it seeks to enhance reliability of diagnosis of dementia, thus access to support and treatment for people from an ethnic minority group experiencing memory problems.

  Background
  • We are a group of staff from the Memory Assessment Service in Manchester. There are currently no suitable tests for dementia for people from Somalia.
  • Research evidence tells us there are many reasons why the tools that we use now are not working. This includes differences in culture and ways of life that are very different to a British born person who has lived in the UK for all of their life.
  • Somali people find out at a later stage if they have dementia resulting in delayed treatment/support.
  • This research supports the government’s promise to improve the pathway to a diagnosis of dementia for minority groups.

  Design and methods
  • We need 10 people to take part in the study.
  • We will compare the assessment tool MSCAT that we have developed to the Addenbrookes Cognitive Examination III tool that is typically used.
  • Participants will be seen at an agreed location (e.g. home, mosque or GMMH trust site). They will meet a Somali speaking researcher to do both tests on 2 appointments and discuss how they found the tests afterwards.
  • We will check participants understanding of the research before they agree to take part. Verbal and written information will be provided.

  Public involvement
  • The local Somali community helped advise us on the creation of the new MSCAT assessment tool.
  • We will write project information for participants in Somali and English.

  How we will let people know the results
  • Professional conference presentations and publications

  Summary of Results

  We wanted to find out if the assessment we designed to assess memory and other thinking abilities in Somali elders (Manchester Somali Cognitive Assessment Tool; MSCAT) was acceptable to that community and practical to administer and score. We compared the MSCAT to the standard test used in memory services to test thinking (ACE III) that was translated into Somali.
  
  Both tests were completed by 8 Somali people then we gathered their views. For example we asked them how difficult they found the tasks and whether they had suggestions for improvements to improve the translation and make the tests more appropriate to Somali culture. Most people found some parts of the assessments easy and other parts more challenging. As expected people who had not received education were unable to complete reading, writing and drawing sections on the ACE III. We made changes to both tests based on their feedback. For example some people told us some of the pictures were not familiar so we changed them to objects more recognisable to Somali people. Then we completed the tests with another 4 people and asked for their views.

  Overall people reported the Somali translations on both assessments were good and suitable for people with north and south dialects. Most people found a matchstick task too difficult or did not want to try it, so we removed this. Most people preferred the MSCAT over the ACE III.

  We found the feedback very helpful in improving our MSCAT assessment tool. Due to the small numbers of participants and the ongoing changes we made to both tests, we did not look the test scores in this study. We plan to use the improved MSCAT in a new research project to look more closely at scoring of the different sections.

• REC name

  North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 1

• REC reference

  21/NS/0145

• Date of REC Opinion

  8 Nov 2021

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion