Validity of the Korean Version of the Fear of Alzheimer's Disease Scale for the Assessment of Anticipatory Dementia

Abstract

Anticipatory dementia is related to anxiety, which is a clinical predictor of early conversionto Alzheimer’s disease. The Fear of Alzheimer’s Disease Scale (FADS) is a reliable and validinstrument to address anticipatory dementia. The aim of the present investigation was todevelop the Korean version of the Fear of Alzheimer’s Disease Scale (K-FADS) and to verifyits reliability and validity. We developed the K-FADS to consist of 30 items with total scoresranging from 0 to 120, as in the original FADS. One hundred eight healthy volunteerparticipants, drawn from 3 different university hospitals, were evaluated. The K-FADSrevealed good reliability (Cronbach α = 0.96) and good validity as compared to the Koreanversion of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Form (r = 0.242, P = 0.013). Test-retestreliability was excellent, as the intra-class correlation coefficient comparing the retest totest was 0.98 (95% confidence interval, 0.96-0.99). Our results show that the K-FADS is asuitable and valuable scale to assess anticipatory dementia in elderly Koreans.