Davos Study Finds That Clinicians Need More Confidence in Diagnosing/Managing Dementia

Results from the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative System Preparedness (DAC-SP) Early Detection program suggest that increasing clinicians’ engagement and confidence in diagnosing and managing dementia may improve early detection and care for people with cognitive impairment. The results, which were presented at the 2024 meeting of the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, were consistent across multiple international sites.

As part of the DAC-SP Early Detection program, 7 healthcare systems across 6 countries, including Brazil, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, Scotland, and the United States, implemented a digital cognitive assessment (DCA) to improve clinicians’ recognition of cognitive impairment symptoms. Attitude towards care, confidence in clinical ability, and engagement levels of the 265 participating clinicians were assessed prior to DCA training as subscales of the General Practitioners Attitude and Confidence Scale for Dementia (GPACS-D), an instrument developed to reliably evaluate general practitioners’ confidence towards dementia. Individual clinician results were averaged using a validated scoring algorithm to determine total GPACS-D scores.

The following findings were reported:

• At baseline, most clinicians reported a positive attitude towards care across all 7 sites.
• Confidence in clinical abilities was poor across most sites, including Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Scotland, and both US sites.
• Engagement ratings were poor across the global sites.

Researchers noted that the subscales were ranked similarly by clinicians across the sites despite their differences in geographic locations. According to the study authors, these findings suggest that clinicians in primary care and non-specialty settings may benefit from cognitive assessment training focused on improving their levels of engagement and confidence.