Exploring Literacy in First-Generation Turkish-Dutch Patients and A Cohort from Ankara: A Continuum-Based Approach in Neuropsychological Assessment

According to the 2023 data of UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS), approximately 773 million adults aged 15 and older worldwide do not have fundamental literacy skills, with women comprising two-thirds of this demographic. In Western Europe, adults falling into this category are generally the elderly from ethnic minority backgrounds who have migrated from low- and middle-income countries and first generation of Turkish migrants in the Netherlands serve as an example of this phenomenon. As this population ages, there is a rising prevalence of dementia, prompting the need for cross-cultural neuropsychological studies on literacy. In the study area of dementia, diagnosing individuals with limited education presents challenges for clinicians especially in culturally diverse populations. Generally, participants are asked about their literacy through self-report methods. This prompted the development of a brief assessment instrument for literacy (LST) in the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam for the usage in Multicultural Memory Clinic. For the study, a total of 178 participants (patients and controls) were enrolled from the Netherlands (n=116) and Turkey (n=62), with a mean age of 68 years. The primary objectives were to investigate the relationship between self-reported literacy and LST scores and explore the role of education, gender, and diagnosis. The study shows the relevance of conducting more comprehensive neuropsychological interviews on literacy among migrants, emphasizing the importance of adopting a continuum-based approach.