Development of an Item Pool Reflecting Cognitive Concerns Expressed by People With HIV.

OBJECTIVE: The overall aim of this study is to create an item pool reflecting the cognitive concerns expressed by people with HIV as a first step toward developing such a measure.

METHOD: Semiqualitative interviews with 292 people with HIV were carried out. Their concerns were mapped to neurocognitive domains to identify concern content areas and were compared with existing cognitive questionnaires. A questionnaire was developed to estimate the prevalence and importance of the items.

RESULTS: Sixty of 125 items were retained in the questionnaire based on ratings of their prevalence, importance, and clarity. Memory and behavioral and emotional concerns were the most common content areas (15 each); other domains were attention (7), executive function (6), language (5), and cognitive change (12).

CONCLUSION: People living with HIV experience difficulties in all domains of cognition. By recognizing all domains, this new measure can help clinicians better understand areas of perceived cognitive difficulty and plan interventions accordingly.