Incidence of Delirium in Critically Ill Patients in a Dutch University Hospital

Incidence of Delirium in Critically Ill Patients in a Dutch University Hospital

The objective of this study is to determine the incidence of delirium in adults patients who are admitted at the critical care unit of a Dutch University Hospital.

The primary aim is to determine the incidence of delirium and to determine risk factors for this group of patients to develop a prediction model.

A secondary aim is to find differences between delirious patients and non-delirious patients on different aspects of diagnostics, treatment and care, outcome, length of stay, and inflammation.

According to Dutch law, the need to obtain informed consent was waived by the Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects (CMO) of Nijmegen for this observational study (2007/283).

Inclusion Criteria:

• all adult patients (18 years and older) admitted at the critical care unit of our hospital

Exclusion Criteria:

• not able to understand Dutch
• patients with serious hearing and visibility disabilities
• mentally retarded patients