Development and content validity of the cognition in daily life scale (CDL).
Anne-Fleur Domensino, Elyan Aarts, Johanna M A Visser-Meily and 2 others
PMID 38656293WHAT IT FOUND
Experts confirmed the new Cognition in Daily Life scale accurately covers six key areas like attention and memory.
The 65-item tool is validated for content, but clinicians must wait for reliability testing before using it to diagnose or track progress.
Key findings
01The final instrument consists of 65 items across six cognitive domains, including alertness, perception, memory, actions, language, and task behaviour.
02Experts rated 43% of the initial items as highly relevant with perfect agreement, leading to a high overall content validity score that required no further review rounds.
03The scale is designed to be used alongside standard cognitive tests to describe real-life functioning, but it cannot be used on its own to determine if a patient has a cognitive impairment.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study only checked if experts thought the items were relevant. It did not test if the tool actually works on patients. There is no evidence yet that two different therapists would score the same patient similarly. The expert panel was small (11 people) and came from only four countries. The authors state the tool should only be used by healthcare professionals with specific training in cognitive functioning, which may limit who can use it.
Declared interests
The work was funded by the 'Gewoon Bijzonder' Programme under the Organisation of Health Research and Development (ZonMw) in the Netherlands.
The easy way to misread this
Do not start using this scale in your clinic yet. The paper only proves that experts think the questions are relevant. It has not been tested to see if it is reliable, meaning you do not know if different therapists would get the same results, or if it accurately reflects patient impairment.