The effect of metabolic parameters on delirium etiology and prognosis in patients in the Internal Intensive Care Unit

Since metabolic disorders have an important place in patients who develop delirium, we examined the effects of metabolic disorders in patients hospitalized in our intensive care unit in terms of the development of delirium. Our aim is to detect metabolic disorders that may cause delirium and to try to prevent the development of delirium by correcting these disorders in the early period. Materials and Methods: 138 patients hospitalized in the Internal Medicine Intensive Care clinic between October 2022 and May 2023 were included in the study. While 67 patients were evaluated in the delirium group, 69 patients were evaluated in the control group. Our study was conducted as a prospective and descriptive study. Results: 53.7% of the patients in the delirium group were male and 46.3% were female. The number of male patients was 36 and the number of female patients was 31. In the control group, the number of male patients was 54.4% and the number of female patients was 45.6%. The number of male patients was 38 and the number of female patients was 31. In the group that developed delirium, 5 patients had lung cancer, 5 patients had CKD, 2 patients had DM, and 2 patients had esophageal cancer. Magnesium and glucose levels were found to be significantly lower in the group that developed delirium than in the control group. Discussion and Conclusion: Delirium is an important condition that prolongs the stay in intensive care and increases morbidity and mortality. Therefore, it is important to early detect and correct risk factors and metabolic disorders that lead to the development of delirium. Magnesium and glucose levels, which we found to be at risk for the development of delirium in our study, should be observed in every patient in intensive care and their treatments should be arranged to be within optimal limits.