Abstract
Objective: Among Alzheimer disease (AD) patients enrolled in a clinical trial, the authors assessed the ability of a standardized capacity assessment procedure to identify persons who are capable of giving their own informed consent. Design: Cross-sectional interview. Setting: Thirteen sites participating in a randomized and placebo controlled study of simvastatin for the treatment of mild to moderate AD. Participants: Persons with mild to moderate AD and their study partners enrolled in the simvastatin clinical trial. Measurements: Interviews to assess decision-making capacity using the MacArthur Competency Assessment Tool for Clinical Research (MacCAT-CR). Results: Judges blinded to the subject's clinical status had a high rate of agreement on patients capable of giving their own informed consent (κ = 0.73). The understanding subscale had the best receiver operator characteristic and an analysis of positive and negative predictive values over a range of hypothetical prevalences of incapacity to consent demonstrated the value of a range of understanding cut-points. Conclusion: Among mild to moderate AD patients, enrolled in an actual clinical trial, these results suggest evidence based guidelines for using the MacCAT-CR understanding subscale to help guide judgments about whether a patient has the capacity to consent.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 568-574 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry |
Volume | 16 |
Issue number | 7 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 2008 |
Keywords
- Alzheimer disease
- Decision making capacity
- Informed consent
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Geriatrics and Gerontology
- Psychiatry and Mental health