Objective: To develop a self-report screening tool for neuropsychiatric syndromes (NPS) in patients with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and to conduct an initial evaluation of its clinical performance.

Background: NPS are highly prevalent in PD and substantially affect quality of life, caregiver burden, and disease prognosis. Comprehensive assessment typically requires multiple questionnaires to capture the broad spectrum of NPS in PD – including depression, anxiety, apathy, fatigue, (hypo)mania, psychosis, and impulse control disorders. This approach is time-consuming, burdensome for patients, and difficult to implement in routine clinical care. A concise and efficient assessment instrument is therefore needed.

Method: Based on a literature review and prior work from our group (1), we developed the Neuropsychiatric Syndrome Questionnaire (NPSQ). Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha. Convergent validity was examined via Spearman correlations between NPSQ subscales and established validation instruments. Diagnostic accuracy was evaluated using receiver operating characteristic analyses and the area under the curve (AUC) of the NPSQ subscales.

Results: To date, 54 patients with PD and 41 healthy controls were included (N = 95). Preliminary item analysis revealed that most items met standard criteria regarding item difficulty, item variance, and item-total correlation. Diagnostic accuracy was good across all subscales (AUC = 0.78–0.97). Four subscales showed at least acceptable internal consistency (α > 0.70), whereas mania, psychosis, and impulse control disorder demonstrated lower reliability. NPSQ subscales showed moderate to high correlations (ρ = 0.33–0.79) with corresponding validation instruments, supporting convergent validity.

Conclusion: Preliminary results suggest that the NPSQ is a promising tool for assessing NPS in PD, demonstrating good diagnostic accuracy and validity. Lower psychometric performance of selected subscales, such as mania or psychosis, likely reflects the low base rate and infrequent occurrence of these syndromes in the relatively small sample. Based on these findings, selected items will be revised, followed by validation of the refined questionnaire in a larger cohort.

References: 1. Schedlich-Teufer C, Jost ST, Krack P, Witt K, Weintraub D, Baldermann JC, et al. Assessment of Affective-Behavioral States in Parkinson’s Disease Patients: Towards a New Screening Tool. J Parkinsons Dis. 2021;11(3):1417-30.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/development-and-preliminary-results-of-a-new-self-assessment-tool-for-neuropsychiatric-syndromes-in-parkinsons-disease/