Document Type
Article
Abstract
Background
Delirium, an acute brain dysfunction, is proposed to be highly prevalent in clinical care and shown to significantly increase the risk of mortality and dementia.
Objectives
To report on the global prevalence of clinically documented delirium and delirium-related clinical practices in wards caring for paediatric and adult patients in healthcare facilities.
Design
A prospective, cross-sectional, 39-question survey completed on World Delirium Awareness Day, 15 March 2023.
Participants
Clinicians or researchers with access to clinical data.
Main Outcome and Measure
The primary outcome was the prevalence of clinically documented delirium at 8:00 a.m. (4 h) and 8:00 p.m. (±4 h). Secondary outcomes included delirium-related care practices and barriers to use. Descriptive statistics were calculated and multilevel modelling was completed.
Results
1664 wards submitted surveys from 44 countries, reporting on delirium assessments at 8:00 a.m. (n = 36 048) and 8:00 p.m. (n = 32 867); 61% reported use of validated delirium assessment tools. At 8:00 a.m., 18% (n = 2788/15 458) and at 8:00 p.m., 17.7% (n = 2454/13 860) were delirium positive. Top prevention measures were pain management (86.7%), mobilisation (81.4%) and adequate fluids (80.4%). Frequently reported pharmacologic interventions were benzodiazepines (52.7%) and haloperidol (46.2%). Top barriers included the shortage of staff (54.3%), lack of time to educate staff (48.6%) and missing knowledge about delirium (38%).
Conclusion and Relevance
In this study, approximately one out of five patients were reported as delirious. The reported high use of benzodiazepines needs further evaluation as it is not aligned with best-practice recommendations. Findings provide a benchmark for future quality improvement projects and research.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Publication Info
Published in Age and Ageing, Volume 53, Issue 11, 2024.
APA Citation
Lindroth, H., Liu, K., Szalacha, L., Ashkenazy, S., Bellelli, G., van den Boogaard, M., Caplan, G., Chung, C. R., Elhadi, M., Gurjar, M., Heras-La-Calle, G., Hoffman, M., Jeitziner, M.-M., Krewulak, K., Mailhot, T., Morandi, A., Nawa, R. K., Oh, E. S., Collet, M. O., & Paulino, M. C. (2024). World delirium awareness and quality survey in 2023—a worldwide point prevalence study. Age and Ageing, 53(11). https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afae248
Rights
© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com