An integrated multi-criteria decision-making approach for estimating the importance of the cognitive function impairment risk factors

Cognitive function impairment may seriously hamper the day-to-day activities of human beings. Investigating different risk factors of cognitive function impairment had been an area of immense interest among researchers that led to the identification of several factors. However, studies for estimating the importance of these factors are limited. In this study, an integrated multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach is proposed for estimating the importance of the cognitive impairment risk factors (CIRFs) for cognitive function impairment. Twenty-three CIRFs were identified from the literature and they were grouped into four main category factors such as individual factors, medical factors, psycho-social factors, and occupational factors. The importance of the CIRFs was estimated through their rank which was determined using an integrated analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and entropy method, using pair-wise comparison matrices collected from a panel of ten experts. It was found that among the four main category factors, psycho-social factors and individual factors were the most and the least prominent respectively. Further, among the 23 CIRFs, long working hours which was a sub-factor of the occupational factors, and depression, a sub-factor of psycho-social factors, were the most and the least important respectively. The sturdiness and reliability of the ranking result were ascertained through sensitivity analysis.