Reliability and Validity of the Chinese Version of Mild Behavioral Impairment Checklist in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Mild Alzheimer's Disease

Background: Mild behavioral impairment (MBI) has been proposed as an early manifestation of dementia. The Mild Behavioral Impairment Checklist (MBI-C) may help identify MBI in prodromal and preclinical dementia. Objective: The study aimed to evaluate the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of MBI-C in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and mild Alzheimer's disease (AD), and to explore the structure of the five factors of the MBI-C in Chinese culture. Methods: Sixty dyads of MCI and mild AD (MCI, n = 33; mild AD, n = 35) were recruited. The informants completed the MBI-C and Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire (NPI-Q) and were interviewed for clinician rating of the NPI. The Cronbach's coefficient was used to measure the structural reliability of the MBI-C. The criterion-validity was evaluated with the correlation coefficient between the MBI-C and the total scores of NPI-Q and NPI. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to investigate the structure of the MBI-C. Results: The Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.895. The MBI-C total score was positively correlated with all five domains (r = 0.577 similar to 0.840). The total score of MBI-C was significantly correlated with the total scores of NPI-Q (r = 0.714) and NPI (r = 0.749). Similarly, the five domain scores of MBI-C were significantly correlated with the factor and total scores of NPI-Q (r = 0.312 similar to 0.673) and NPI (r = 0.389 similar to 0.673). The components of each factor in Chinese version of MBI-C were slightly different from those of the a priori defined domains (chi(2) = 1818.202, df = 496, p < 0.001). Conclusion: The Chinese version of MBI-C has good reliability and validity, and can be used to evaluate the psychological and behavioral changes in MCI and mild AD.