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The Neuropsychiatric Inventory
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1994
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The study introduces the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI), a tool to assess ten behavioral disturbances in dementia patients. The NPI employs a screening strategy that limits assessment to domains with positive responses, then rates each behavior’s frequency and severity based on caregiver reports. Studies confirm the NPI’s validity and reliability, and show it evaluates a broader range of psychopathology, distinguishes dementia etiologies, differentiates severity and frequency, and reduces administration time.
We developed a new instrument, the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI), to assess 10 behavioral disturbances occurring in dementia patients: delusions, hallucinations, dysphoria, anxiety, agitation/aggression, euphoria, disinhibition, irritability/lability, apathy, and aberrant motor activity. The NPI uses a screening strategy to minimize administration time, examining and scoring only those behavioral domains with positive responses to screening questions. Both the frequency and the severity of each behavior are determined. Information for the NPI is obtained from a caregiver familiar with the patient9s behavior. Studies reported here demonstrate the content and concurrent validity as well as between-rater, test-retest, and internal consistency reliability; the instrument is both valid and reliable. The NPI has the advantages of evaluating a wider range of psychopathology than existing instruments, soliciting information that may distinguish among different etiologies of dementia, differentiating between severity and frequency of behavioral changes, and minimizing administration time.