Dementia knowledge levels among adolescents in England

Objectives: Raising awareness of dementia in the general public is a key dementia policy. Adolescents are one population whose levels of dementia knowledge we have little understanding about. In this cross-sectional survey study, we aimed to capture the level of dementia knowledge in adolescents from different socio-demographic groups and to explore the factors associated with adolescents’ dementia knowledge. Method: We recruited 1,371 adolescents aged 11-18 years across England. Adoeslescents were asked to complete a survey that included dementia knowledge items from the The Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey. Descriptive statistics, a logistic regression, and cross-tabulations were used to explore adolescents’ level of dementia knowledge in various demographic groups (e.g. ethnicity, religion, sex, age). Results: Adolescents were able to answer just under half the knowledge items correctly (mean = 48%). Only 30% (n = 411) of participants correctly identified that dementia is not a mental illness and just over half of the adolescents (53%, n = 725) thought that dementia is not a normal part of ageing. While we observed some demographic differences, the level of knowledge across various groups did not significantly differ (p-values >.05). Conclusions: Overall, the presence of widespread misconceptions among adolescents, combined with the lack of demographic variation, indicates that universal dementia education and awareness campaigns may be required to effectively address these misunderstandings.