Delirium Associated with Prolonged Hospitalization in Patients of Internal Medicine at the Clinica Universitaria Bolivariana

Abstract

Objective: To determine if delirium has association with longer hospitalization time and mortality in patients admitted to Clinica Universitaria Bolivariana. Methods: In one month period all patients admitted to de clinic were interviewed twice (in the admission and one more time within the next 12 hours) searching for DSM IV diagnostic criteria for delirium, besides the visitors were interviewed and the Mini Mental State Test was applied to the patients. The diagnosis made by internal medicine, hospital stay, and mortality rate were registered. The information was placed in an Excel 2,000 database and the statistical analysis was performed in the Statistica program. Results: 56 patients were evaluated. 31 (55.4%) did not have delirium, 25 (44.6%) had it. Hospitalization mean value for nondelirium patients was 6.06 days and 8.32 days for patients with delirium. There was a statistical association between the duration of hospitalization and delirium (p = 0.0206). Conclusions: Due to the fact that delirium is a diagnosis that increase healing costs and because it 's a quality hospital care marker and taking into account that we found a statistical association between delirium and longer hospitalization we suggest cost studies, diagnostic and early intervention studies to investigate the impact in the economy and morbidity by interviewing this pathology.