THE EFFECT OF DEMOGRAPHIC AND HEALTH VARIABLES ON A MODIFIED FORM OF MINI-MENTAL-STATE-EXAMINATION SCORES IN NIGERIAN ELDERLY COMMUNITY RESIDENTS

A culturally relevant form of the Mini-Mental State Examination was ad ministered to 502 persons aged 60 years and over living in three locat ions representing rural and urban settings in southwestern Nigeria. Mu ltivariate statistical methods show that variables like sex, age, educ ation and self-assessed health affect the scores on MMSE. The coeffici ent alpha for the instrument was low for those with less than complete primary education, but for those with full primary education or more, it gave a value similar to those obtained in some studies in western countries.