MMSE in primary care practice: why good tests can mislead in the wrong context

Abstract

The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) is widely used in cognitive screening, including in primary care settings. This study evaluated the diagnostic performance of the MMSE using data from 390 community-dwelling older adults aged 65 to 98 years (M = 75.76, SD = 6.76). The MMSE’s accuracy was assessed against clinical diagnoses and symptom severity levels based on the Global Deterioration Scale (GDS). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, evaluating the ability to distinguish individuals with dementia from those without, provided an area under the curve (AUC) of.75 (95% CI: 0.67–0.84, p