Diagnosis of delirium and clinical features associated with delirium in geriatric intensive care patients

Delirium may be the cause of functional regression and loss of independence in elderly individuals. It can initiate the chain of events that ultimately lead to death. Delirium may be the first sign of a new serious illness in many elderly patients and individuals with cognitive inefficiency. The aim of this study is to retest the internal consistency reliability of the Nursing Delirium Screening Scale (Nu-DESC), to diagnose delirium in geriatric intensive care patients and to determine the clinical features associated with delirium. The study included 150 geriatric intensive care patients who were not transferred from another intensive care unit, were older than 65 years, were hospitalized in the intensive care for at least 48 hours and were not in coma (GCS:10 and above) without a history of previously diagnosed neurological and psychiatric illnesses (dementia, psychosis, mental retardation, neuromuscular disease; head trauma, neurosurgery, stroke) that could be misleading in the diagnosis of delirium, did not have dementia (IQCODE score: <3.4), and were non-fatal (expected survival period of 24 hours). A Patient Information Form, the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), the Standardized Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), the Nursing Delirium Screening Scale Turkish Form (Nu-DESC) and the Confusion Assessment Method for the Intensive Care Unit (CAM-ICU) were used for data collection. In the evaluation of the data, the Significance Test of the Difference Between Two Means as well as descriptive statistical methods (frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation) were used. According to the Nu-DESC, delirium was detected in 53.3% of the patients during the day (n = 80) and in 74.0% at night (n = 111) in this study. A significant relationship was found between the development of delirium, and hypertension, undergoing surgery recently, and the use of prosthodontics of the personal ancillary equipment used by patients, which are clinical features associated with delirium. The Cronbach Alpha internal consistency coefficient of the Nu-DESC was found to be 0.868. Keywords: Delirium, geriatrics, intensive care, patient, reliability.