Comparison of Delirium Screening Instruments for the Elderly

Young Whee Lee; Sung Ok Chang; Eun Suk Kong; Nam Cho Kim; Chun Gill Kim; Hee Kyung Kim; Misoon Song; Soo Yeon Ahn; Myung Ok Cho; Kyung Sook Choi

doi:10.7475/kjan.2012.24.6.655

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Lee, Chang, Kong, Kim, Kim, Kim, Song, Ahn, Cho, and Choi: Comparison of Delirium Screening Instruments for the Elderly

Original Article

Korean Journal of Adult Nursing 2013; 25(6): 655-664.

Published online: 31 December 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7475/kjan.2012.24.6.655

Comparison of Delirium Screening Instruments for the Elderly

Young Whee Lee¹, Sung Ok Chang², Eun Suk Kong³, Nam Cho Kim⁴, Chun Gill Kim⁵, Hee Kyung Kim⁶, Misoon Song⁷, Soo Yeon Ahn⁵, Myung Ok Cho⁸, Kyung Sook Choi⁹

¹Department of Nursing, Inha University, Incheon, Korea.

²College of Nursing, Korea University, Seoul, Korea.

³Department of Nursing, Jesus University, Jeonju, Korea.

⁴College of Nursing, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea.

⁵Division of Nursing, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Korea.

⁶Department of Nursing, Kongju National University, Gongju, Korea.

⁷College of Nursing, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.

⁸Department of Nursing, Dong-Eui University, Busan, Korea.

⁹Red Cross of Nursing, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea.

Corresponding author: Chang, Sung Ok. College of Nursing, Korea University, 145 Anam-ro, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul 136-705, Korea. Tel: +82-10-8917-4918, Fax: +82-2-927-4676, sungok@korea.ac.kr

Received 12 June 2013 Revised 6 December 2013 Accepted 18 December 2013

Abstract

Purpose

This study was undertaken to identify which delirium screening instrument would be more useful in clinical practice.

Methods

Data were collected from 118 nurses from six hospitals in five provinces in Korea. For the delirium screening three instruments were compared: NEECHAM Confusion Scale (NEECHAM), Nursing Delirium Screening Scale (Nu-DESC), Delirium Observation Scale (DOS). The MMSE-K was used for concurrent validity. The nurse subjects were surveyed as to the practical clinical value of each instrument. Cronbach's α coefficient and Kuder-Richardson 20 were used to confirm the reliability.

Results

The range of three scales reliability was .70~.82 and the range of correlation coefficient was .63~.82 with MMSE-K. For sensitivity of NEECHAM, Nu-DESC and DOS was 1.00, 1.00 and 0.81 respectively and specificity NEECHAM, Nu-DESC and DOS was 0.88, 0.89 and 0.89 respectively. Nurses rated the practical use of the DOS scale as significantly easier to use than the NEECHAM and Nu-DESC.

Conclusion

NEECHAM, Nu-DESC and DOS scales were acceptable in terms of reliability, validity, sensitivity and specificity. However, nurses rated the DOS scale as easier scale to use and had more relevance to their practice.

Keywords: Delirium, Aged

Figures and Tables

Table 1

General Characteristics of Subjects (N=118)

Table 2

Correlation among NEECHAM Confusion Scale, Nursing Delirium Screening Scale, Delirium Observation Scale and MMSE-K (N=118)

MMSE-K=Mini-mental state examination-Korean

Table 3

The Difference of Easiness of Use in Clinical Practice among Each Scale for Delirium Assessment (N=118)

NEECHAM=NEECHAM confusion scale; Nu-DSC=nursing delirium screening scale; DOS=delirium observation scale.

Notes

This work was supported by the Interest Group research grant of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing Lambda Alpha Chapter-at-Large

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