JOURNAL ARTICLE
VALIDATION STUDIES
Add like
Add dislike
Add to saved papers

Delirium assessment in hospitalized elderly patients: Italian translation and validation of the nursing delirium screening scale.

BACKGROUND: Delirium has a high incidence pathology associated with negative outcomes. Although highly preventable, half the cases are not recognized. One major cause of delirium misdiagnosis is the absence of a versatile instrument to measure it.

AIMS: Our objective was to translate the nursing delirium screening scale (Nu-DESC) and evaluate its performance in Italian settings.

METHODS: This was a methodological study conducted in two sequential phases. The first was the Italian translation of Nu-DESC through a translation and back-translation process. The second aimed to test the inter-rater reliability, the sensibility and specificity of the instrument on a convenience sample of 101 hospitalized elderly people admitted to relevant wards of the San Gerardo Hospital in Monza. To evaluate the inter-rater reliability, two examiners tested Nu-DESC on 20 patients concurrently without comparison. To measure the sensibility and specificity of Nu-DESC, the confusion assessment method was used as a gold standard measure.

RESULTS: The inter-rater reliability (Cohen Kappa) was 0.87-an excellent agreement between examiners. The study of the ROC curve showed an AUC value of 0.9461 suggesting high test accuracy. Using 3 as a cut-off value, Nu-DESC showed 100 % sensibility and 76 % specificity.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Further research is needed to test Nu-DESC on a larger sample. However, based on our results, Nu-DESC can be used in research and clinical practice in Italian settings because of its very good and similar performances to previous validation studies. The value of 3 appears to be the optimal cut-off in the Italian context.

Full text links

We have located links that may give you full text access.
Can't access the paper?
Try logging in through your university/institutional subscription. For a smoother one-click institutional access experience, please use our mobile app.

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app

Mobile app image

Get seemless 1-tap access through your institution/university

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app

All material on this website is protected by copyright, Copyright © 1994-2024 by WebMD LLC.
This website also contains material copyrighted by 3rd parties.

By using this service, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.

Your Privacy Choices Toggle icon

You can now claim free CME credits for this literature searchClaim now

Get seemless 1-tap access through your institution/university

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app