Delirium incidence in elderly inpatients

Our objective was to determine delirium incidence and risk factors in a coh ort of elderly inpatients. We randomly selected 149 patients, aged 65 years or older, from admission to general wards, without evidence of delirium. T hey were evaluated daily with the Confusion Assessment Method, an instrumen t validated for the diagnosis of delirium. We obtained relative risks for d elirium and those independently associated were included in a logistic regr ession model. We used the chi-square test with Yate's corrections for univa riate analysis, and t-test for comparisons of means. We observed that 51 pa tients (20.5%) developed delirium during their hospital stay. Severity of d isease (RR 1.28, 1.14-1.43), having chronic diseases (RR 3.45, 2.4-4.96), a nd having fever at admission (RR 1.84, 1.33-2.56) were found independently associated with delirium. Patients who developed delirium had longer hospit al stay (9.87 days +/- 3.48 vs 6.95 days +/- 2.45, p < 0.05) and higher mor tality (RR 2.19, CI 1.26-3.79). We conclude that delirium in our setting is very frequent and has negative effects on resource utilization and mortali ty in elderly inpatients. Its association with the severity of the disease seems interesting. Appropriate prospective identification of patients at ri sk for delirium may allow the implementation of preventive strategies in or der to minimize the impact of this complication.