Longitudinal measurement invariance of memory performance and executive functioning in healthy aging

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 13; no. 9; p. e0204012
• Main Authors: Moreira, Pedro Miguel Silva, Santos, Nadine Correia, Castanho, Teresa Jesus Costa, Amorim, Liliana Patrícia Carvalho, Nunes, José Carlos Leitão Portugal, Sousa, Nuno, Costa, Patrício Soares
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science (PLOS) 28-09-2018; Public Library of Science; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Aged; Aging; Aging (Biology); Aging - psychology; Analysis; Analysis of Variance; Biology and Life Sciences; Ciências Médicas; Cognition; Cognitive ability; Demographic aspects; Executive Function; Factor analysis; Factor Analysis, Statistical; Female; Females; Health sciences; Healthy Aging - psychology; Humans; Invariance; Laboratories; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Measurement; Medicina Básica; Medicine; Medicine and Health Sciences; Memory; Memory and Learning Tests - statistics & numerical data; Methods; Middle Aged; Models, Psychological; Models, Statistical; Neuropsychological Tests - statistics & numerical data; Physical sciences; Physiological aspects; Portugal; Psychology; Quality of life; Research and analysis methods; Research methodology; Science & Technology; Skewness; Social Sciences; Studies; Portugal
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0204012

In this work, we examined the longitudinal measurement invariance of a battery composed of distinct cognitive parameters. A sample of 86 individuals (53.5% females; mean age = 65.73), representative of the Portuguese older population, with respect to sex, age and level of education was assessed twice over an average of two years. By means of a confirmatory factor analysis approach, we tested whether a two-factor solution [corresponding to measures of memory performance (MEM) and executive functioning (EXEC)] was reliable over time. Nested models of longitudinal invariance demonstrated the existence of partial strong invariance over time. In other words, this indicates that there is an equivalence of the factorial structure and factor loadings for all items; this was also observed for the item intercepts for all the items, except for one of the items from the EXEC dimension. Stability coefficients revealed high associations between the dimensions over time and that, whereas there was a significant decline of the MEM across time, this was not observed for the EXEC dimension. These findings reveal that changes in MEM and EXEC scores can be attributed to true changes on these constructs, enabling the use of this battery as a reliable method to study cognitive aging.
PSM (ref: PDE/BDE/113601/2015 - PhD-iHES program), TCC (ref: SFRH/BD/90078/2012), LA (SFRH/BD/101398/2014) and CPN (ref: PD/BD/106050/2015 - PhDOC program) were supported by FCT fellowship grants. The work has been developed under the scope of the projects NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000013 supported by the Northern Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the Portugal 2020 (P2020) Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) and POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016428 supported by the Operational Programme Competitiveness and Internationalization (COMPETE 2020) and the Regional Operational Program of Lisbon and National Funding through Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal); and, by the Portuguese North Regional Operational Programme (ON.2 - O Novo Norte), under the National Strategic Reference Framework (QREN), through FEDER, the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (Portugal) (contract grant number: P-139977; project "TEMPO - Better mental health during ageing based on temporal prediction of individual brain ageing trajectories") and SwitchBox-FP7-HEALTH-2010-grant 259772-2