Any interviewer who, at any point in the interview, felt that respondents were incapable of completing the interview for cognitive reasons was required to administer the Dementia Screener before terminating the interview.  If the respondent received a passing score on the cognitive screener test, the interviewer was required to continue with the interview.  If the respondent failed the test, the interview was terminated.  

Even though the interviewer could administer the Dementia Screener at any time in the interview, the vast majority of administrations occurred during the first section of the interview (the SC Section) and cognitively impaired respondents were terminated before completing this section.

The NCS-R and NCS-2 interviews were carried out using CAPI methodology.  However, the Dementia Screener was administered in paper and pencil mode in order to build in the flexibility needed by the interviewer to administer the section at any point in the interview he or she desired.  Although it is possible to program a CAPI system to jump to a module of this sort and then back again to the last spot in the interview that was completed before going to the external module, this option was difficult to implement smoothly in the complex CAPI program used in NCS-2 and NCS-R.  For that reason, we opted for paper and pencil administration of the Dementia Screener.