Delirium in intensive care unit patients under noninvasive ventilation: a multinational survey

OBJECTIVE To conduct a multinational survey of intensive care unit professionals to determine the practices on delirium assessment and management, in addition to their perceptions and attitudes toward the evaluation and impact of delirium in patients requiring noninvasive ventilation. METHODS An electronic questionnaire was created to evaluate the profiles of the respondents and their related intensive care units, the systematic delirium assessment and management and the respondents' perceptions and attitudes regarding delirium in patients requiring noninvasive ventilation. The questionnaire was distributed to the cooperative network for research of the Associação de Medicina Intensiva Brasileira (AMIB-Net) mailing list and to researchers in different centers in Latin America and Europe. RESULTS Four hundred thirty-six questionnaires were available for analysis; the majority of the questionnaires were from Brazil (61.9%), followed by Turkey (8.7%) and Italy (4.8%). Approximately 61% of the respondents reported no delirium assessment in the intensive care unit, and 31% evaluated delirium in patients under noninvasive ventilation. The Confusion Assessment Method for the intensive care unit was the most reported validated diagnostic tool (66.9%). Concerning the indication of noninvasive ventilation in patients already presenting with delirium, 16.3% of respondents never allow the use of noninvasive ventilation in this clinical context. CONCLUSION This survey provides data that strongly reemphasizes poor efforts toward delirium assessment and management in the intensive care unit setting, especially regarding patients requiring noninvasive ventilation.