Development, equivalence study, and normative data of version B of the Spanish-language Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test

Introduction: The Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test (FCSRT) is widely used for the assessment of verbal episodic memory, mainly in patients with Alzheimer disease. A Spanish-language version of the FCSRT and normative data were developed within the NEURONORMA project. Availability of alternative, equivalent versions is useful for following patients up in clinical settings. This study aimed to develop an alternative version of the original FCSRT (version B) and to study its equivalence to the original Spanish-language test (version A), and its performance in a sample of healthy individuals, in order to develop reference data.

Methods: We evaluated 232 healthy participants of the NEURONORMA-Plus project, aged between 18 and 90. Thirty-three participants were assessed with both test versions using a counterbalanced design.

Results: High intra-class correlation coefficients (between 0.8 and 0.9) were observed in the equivalence study. While no significant differences in performance were observed in total recall scores, free recall scores were significantly lower for version B.

Conclusions: These preliminary results suggest that the newly developed FCSRT version B is equivalent to version A in the main variables tested. Further studies are necessary to ensure interchangeability between versions. We provide normative data for the new version.