Validity and Reliability of an Assessment Tool for the Screening of Neurotoxic Effects in Agricultural Workers in Chile

Abstract

There is a substantial use of pesticides within the agricultural industry of Chile, with neurotoxic effects through mechanisms of acetylcholinesterase inhibition. These pesticides result in deterioration in health, increasing the risk of diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's in highly exposed occupational population. To date, there are no brief assessment tools to monitor cognitive impairment in agricultural workers chronically exposed to these pesticides. Method. 234 agricultural workers and 305 nonagricultural workers were assessed two times (test-retest) through a brief tool which comprised three tests (clock-drawing test (CDT); frontal assessment battery (FAB); trail making tests (TMT) A and B). The full scale of WAIS-IV was administered as a gold standard to 18% of the sample of agricultural workers. Factor analysis was used to evaluate the factor structure, and validity and test-retest reliability were assessed concurrently. Results. Cronbach's alpha values were satisfactory or above (>0.60). Test-retest correlations were all significantly correlated (p < 0.001). All the tests had a significant correlation with the full scale IQ score of WAIS-IV (p < 0.05). The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) measure was 0.74, and the Bartell sphericity test = p < 0.001. Three factors explaining 61.62% of the variance were extracted. Two items of the FAB test were dropped of the final factor solution. Normative data transformed into percentile scores and stratified by age and educational level were obtained for Chilean agricultural workers. Conclusion. The brief assessment tool has adequate metric properties as a screening instrument. This allows for a simple administration test (10 to 15 minutes) that can potentially be used for the rapid monitoring of cognitive deterioration in the face of occupational exposure to pesticides in agricultural workers.

Apathy, Executive Function, and Emotion Recognition Are the Main Drivers of Functional Impairment in Behavioral Variant of Frontotemporal Dementia

“…The patients with bvFTD were referred from two public hospitals in Santiago, Chile: Complejo Asistencial Barros Luco and Hospital El Salvador. The clinical diagnosis was performed by two cognitive neurologists according to the current criteria for bvFTD ( 30 ). The healthy control subjects were recruited by dissemination through the University buildings and social media.…”

“…Each item is scored from 0 to 3 points, where a higher score represents better performance. This test shows suitable psychometric properties in the Chilean population ( 30 ). Second, we used the FAS and animal version of the Controlled Oral Word Association Test [COWAT; ( 35 )] to assess cognitive flexibility.…”

Psychometric Validation of a Questionnaire to Assess Perception and Knowledge About Exposure to Pesticides in Rural Schoolchildren of Maule, Chile

“…We have previously published our findings regarding the reliability and validity of a questionnaire used to assess OP pesticide exposure to adult agricultural workers in Maule, Chile ( Muñoz-Quezada et al, 2019a ). Moreover, we also previously published a manuscript of another research that aimed to validate a short battery for the early detection of cognitive impairment in agricultural workers ( Lucero et al, 2019 ). The main difference between this study and the previous ones is that it corresponds to a questionnaire validated with rural schoolchildren and not with agricultural workers.…”

Measuring Tourist Satisfaction with Route Analysis as a Business Advantage

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