Background: Mild behavioral impairment (MBI) in older people refers to a group of syndromes that are characterized primarily by clusters of neuropsychiatric symptoms without severe cognitive impairment, which is a high-risk population for dementia. Patients often experience a variety of symptoms and exhibit high heterogeneity in symptomatology across different individuals. Classifying the psychotic symptom characteristics of MBI patients aids in the implementation of precise interventions for the next steps.

Objectives: To explore the symptom characteristics of older people with MBI and to classify them based on their symptoms.

Methods: Using a multi-stage sampling Methods, the MBI-Checklist was employed to investigate symptom characteristics in 255 older people with MBI from 32 nursing homes in Fujian Province. Latent Class Analysis (LCA) was then employed to categorize these individuals based on their symptom profiles.

Results: The neuropsychiatric symptoms clusters in older people with MBI often present as a combination of lack of motivation and emotional dysregulation, lack of motivation and impulse control disorders, or emotional dysregulation and impulse control disorders; presentation of a single symptom cluster is relatively less common, accounting for 45.49%. Older people with MBI can be divided into 2 latent classes (P < 0.05) based on symptom characteristics. According to the conditional probability of each class, they were named the “high- level group’’ [211 (82.69%)] and the “low-level group’’[44 (17.31%)].

Discussion: As individuals with MBI are at high risk for developing dementia, early intervention can effectively delay or reduce the occurrence of dementia. Future interventions should be personalized based on the specific symptom characteristics of this population.