Nursing Practices to Detect Acute Delirium, Safeguard Patients Experiencing Acute Delirium, and Help Reduce or Eliminate Acute Delirium

摘要

Acute delirium is very common among hospital patients, particularly older patients. Nurses have a major role in the care of these patients, yet there are no evidence-based nursing care guidelines to help nurses detect patients who are experiencing acute delirium, safeguard them, and assist their recovery. This study sought to identify and prioritize nursing practices for detecting these patients, safeguarding them, and assisting their recovery from acute delirium. A two-stage voluntary paper Delphi survey was used for this purpose. This study targeted all nurses who worked on adult medical/surgical units at two full-service acute care hospitals in Western Canada who had cared for a patient diagnosed with acute delirium in the past 12 months. The first survey revealed many nursing practices exist to detect, safeguard, and assist recovery. The second revealed one preferred practice and four others for each of the following: Detecting acute delirium, safeguarding patients, and helping patients recover. Research is now needed to establish if these constitute “best practice” nursing care for enhanced patient outcomes.