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The accuracy of family physicians' dementia diagnoses at different stages of dementia: a systematic review
Author(s) -
Dungen Pim,
Marwijk Harm W. M.,
Horst Henriëtte E.,
Moll van Charante Eric P.,
MacNeil Vroomen Janet,
Ven Peter M.,
Hout Hein P. J.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
international journal of geriatric psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.28
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1099-1166
pISSN - 0885-6230
DOI - 10.1002/gps.2726
Subject(s) - dementia , medical diagnosis , cinahl , medicine , psycinfo , medline , cochrane library , psychiatry , family medicine , meta analysis , disease , psychological intervention , pathology , political science , law
Objective Optimising care for dementia patients and their informal carers is imperative in light of the impending dementia epidemic. An important aspect of care is accurate recognition and diagnosis of dementia. The aim of this review was to estimate family physicians' diagnostic accuracy at the different stages of dementia. Methods Pubmed, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO and the Cochrane Library were searched for articles comparing family physicians' ‘dementia’ and ‘cognitive impairment’ diagnoses in the primary care setting to reference standard dementia diagnoses. Results Data from six cross‐sectional studies of moderate to reasonable methodological quality were extracted for the analysis. One study considered the accuracy of family physicians' recollected diagnoses, and three studies focussed on documented diagnoses. In these four studies, the sensitivity of family physicians' combined diagnostic categories of ‘cognitive impairment’ together with ‘dementia’ was 0.48–0.67 for mild dementia and 0.76–0.85 for moderate to severe dementia. The sensitivity of their diagnostic category ‘dementia’ alone was 0.14–0.33 for mild and 0.28–0.61 for moderate to severe dementia. Specificity was excellent for all severity stages in both comparisons. Three studies examined the accuracy of family physicians' judgement of cognition during consultation . Compared with the studies on recollection and documentation, these studies reported higher sensitivity and lower specificity. Conclusion Many individuals with dementia are not recognised or not diagnosed as such; particularly mild dementia is under‐diagnosed. Collaboration within primary care and education focussing both on knowledge and attitude are recommended to improve the accuracy of family physicians' dementia diagnosis. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.