The Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) is a short cognitive and behavioral battery, comprising six subtests, for the bedside screening of global executive dysfunction. This study determined the reliability and validity of the Korean version of the FAB (...
The Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) is a short cognitive and behavioral battery, comprising six subtests, for the bedside screening of global executive dysfunction. This study determined the reliability and validity of the Korean version of the FAB (K-FAB) among psychiatric patients. We enrolled 69 subjects with various psychiatric diagnosies, including alcohol dependence, and concurrently administered. Kim’s Frontal-Executive Function Neuropsychological Test (K-FENT). Forty-four subjects completed both the K-FENT and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Two physicians independently conducted the K-FAB. Eeach rater was blind to score of other rater. We compared the total K-FAB score to the K-FENT and WCST results to determine its concurrent validity. Finally, we obtained receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves to determine the optimum cut-off score. The internal consistency was sufficient (Cronbach’s alpha=0.797), and the K-FAB scores were highly correlated bet-ween the two raters. The total K-FAB score correlated significantly with EIQ (r=0.665, p<0.01), the summary score of the Executive Intelligence Test (EXIT). It also correlated with total number of correct responses, perseverative errors, and total number of catergories completed in WCST. At the cut-off value 13, the K-FAB showed good sensitivity (80%) and specificity (69%). The K-FAB is a useful and easy bedside test for screen-ing frontal-executive functional impairments in a variety of psychiatric patients.