Abstracts by keywords: delirium; older people; prevalence; primary care; risk factors
The term delirium describes an etiologically unspecific organic brain syndrome that is characterized by simultaneous disorders of consciousness and attention, perception, thinking, memory, psychomotor skills, emotionality and the sleep-wake rhythm. The duration and severity can vary greatly [Dilling H et al., 2014]. Delirious syndromes are a common complication in the inpatient treatment of elderly patients. While delirious syndromes with a prevalence of 1-2 % were rarely found in outpatients over 65 years of age (Lange et al., 2013; Davies et al., 2013), there were sometimes very high prevalence rates of up to 70% in nursing homes (between 1.4% and 70.3%) and up to 82% in hospitals (between 7% and 82%) (Inouye et al., 2014, Lange et al., 2013). The wide range of these findings depends primarily on the diagnostic criteria used, the age of the patient and the dementia rate. In general, delirium is associated with increased length of stay, increased care needs, increased institutionalization, and ultimately increased mortality rates (Inouye et al., 2014; Pendleburry et al., 2015). It is known that delirium often goes undetected in both inpatient and outpatient settings (Lange de, et al. 2013, Jenkin et al., 2016). Therefore, identifying risk factors is particularly important in order to initiate preventative measures as early as possible (e.g., Kratz et al., 2015; Pendlebury et al., 2017). This applies in particular to preventive diagnostic instruments, such as those used, for example. B. were introduced for delirium in dementia (Richardson et al., 2017). However, there is little information on the prevalence and risk factors of delirium in the outpatient care sector (Lixouriotis et al., 2011; Lange et al., 2013). The aim of this study was therefore to determine the prevalence of documented delirium diagnoses in a large sample of patients in German general practices and to investigate whether risk factors that make the occurrence of delirium more likely can be identified.