Bárczi Gusztáv Faculty of Special Needs Education, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.
Faculty of Humanities, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.
PLoS One. 2023 Aug 17;18(8):e0290153. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0290153. eCollection 2023.
The Hungarian Aphasia Screening Test (HAST) is a newly developed diagnostic tool for detecting post-stroke aphasia in clinical settings, and for differentiating between stroke patients with and without aphasia. The HAST was developed by our team and has not been published in English yet. In Hungarian, to date, there is no aphasia screening test with reported psychometric properties available. This study aims to present the main characteristics of the HAST and to evaluate its validity, internal consistency, and diagnostic accuracy. The HAST comprises five subtests (maximum score: 20) and takes 5-10 minutes to administer. We administered the HAST to 40 stroke patients with aphasia, 26 stroke patients without aphasia, and 51 healthy control participants to evaluate the test's construct validity, convergent validity, and internal consistency, as well as its sensitivity and specificity. We used the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) as a reference test. With a cut-off score of 17, the HAST showed high diagnostic accuracy (sensitivity: 92.5%, specificity: 88.5%). Its construct validity was good; we identified one component in the test, and moderate-to-strong positive correlations across most of its subtests (mean Spearman r = 0.56). Convergent validity of the HAST was satisfying, reflected by the moderate-to-strong positive correlations between subtests of the HAST and subtests of the WAB (Spearman r = 0.50-0.86). The correlation between the HAST total score and the WAB aphasia quotient was high (Spearman r = 0.86). Despite the small number of items within tasks, all subtests showed acceptable internal consistency (mean Cronbach's α = 0.74). Our preliminary results suggest that the HAST is a valid, accurate, and clinically feasible test to detect post-stroke aphasia and to identify patients who require a more detailed assessment of their language skills. In addition, it reliably identifies not only the presence but also the severity of aphasia, thus, it might be a good candidate for monitoring patient progress.
匈牙利失语症筛查测试（HAST）是一种新开发的诊断工具，用于在临床环境中检测中风后的失语症，并区分有和无失语症的中风患者。HAST 是由我们团队开发的，尚未以英文形式发表。迄今为止，匈牙利还没有具有报告心理测量特性的失语症筛查测试。本研究旨在介绍 HAST 的主要特征，并评估其有效性、内部一致性和诊断准确性。HAST 包括五个子测试（最高得分：20 分），测试时间为 5-10 分钟。我们对 40 名有失语症的中风患者、26 名无失语症的中风患者和 51 名健康对照组进行了 HAST 测试，以评估其结构有效性、收敛有效性和内部一致性，以及其敏感性和特异性。我们使用西方失语症成套测验（WAB）作为参考测试。HAST 的截断分数为 17 分，具有较高的诊断准确性（敏感性：92.5%，特异性：88.5%）。其结构有效性良好；我们在测试中确定了一个组成部分，并且大多数子测试之间存在中度至强的正相关（平均斯皮尔曼 r = 0.56）。HAST 的收敛有效性令人满意，反映在 HAST 的子测试与 WAB 的子测试之间存在中度至强的正相关（斯皮尔曼 r = 0.50-0.86）。HAST 总分与 WAB 失语症商数之间的相关性很高（斯皮尔曼 r = 0.86）。尽管任务中的项目数量较少，但所有子测试的内部一致性均可以接受（平均克伦巴赫的α= 0.74）。我们的初步结果表明，HAST 是一种有效的、准确的、临床可行的测试，可以检测中风后的失语症，并识别需要更详细评估语言技能的患者。此外，它不仅可靠地识别了失语症的存在，而且还识别了其严重程度，因此，它可能是监测患者进展的良好候选者。
