ArticleCritical care (London, England)2010
Delirium epidemiology in critical care (DECCA): an international study.
Article in Critical care (London, England), 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to 3 registered trials, which are not on this map. Cited by 150 papers, 10 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Effect of Bispectral Index (BIS)-Guided Sedation on Delirium and Sedative Drug Requirements in Critically Ill Patients Under Deep Sedation
Effects of Multi-model Virtual Reality Intervention Method to Reduce the Prevalence of Delirium in ICU Patients With Mechanical Ventilation
Feasibility of a Cluster Randomised Control Trial Evaluating a Co-designed Analgosedation Protocol in Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) Patients
Who cites it
150 citing papers in PubMed, 10 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 377 citations in OpenAlex.
- A systematic meta-review of interventions to prevent and manage delirium in the Intensive Care Unit: Part 1 - Pharmacological interventions.Critical care (London, England) · 2025Pooled it
- A systematic meta-review of interventions to prevent and manage delirium in the Intensive Care Unit: Part 2 - Non-pharmacological and multicomponent interventions.Critical care (London, England) · 2025Pooled it
- Exercise therapy for the treatment of delirium in the intensive care unit.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2025Pooled it
- The Association Between Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors and the Incidence of Delirium in Critically Ill Patients: A Systematic Review.Critical care explorations · 2025Pooled it
- The Key Drivers of Brain Injury by Systemic Inflammatory Responses after Sepsis: Microglia and Neuroinflammation.Molecular neurobiology · 2023Pooled it
- Neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio and platelet to lymphocyte ratio as prognostic predictors for delirium in critically ill patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC anesthesiology · 2023Pooled it
- Antipsychotics for treatment of delirium in hospitalised non-ICU patients.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2018Pooled it
- Outcome of delirium in critically ill patients: systematic review and meta-analysis.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2015Pooled it
- The confusion assessment method for the intensive care unit (CAM-ICU) and intensive care delirium screening checklist (ICDSC) for the diagnosis of delirium: a systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical studies.Critical care (London, England) · 2012Pooled it
- COVID-19-associated psychosis: A systematic review of case reports.General hospital psychiatryPooled it
- Association between incident delirium and 28- and 90-day mortality in critically ill adults: a secondary analysis.Critical care (London, England) · 2020Trial
- Prophylactic Melatonin for Delirium in Intensive Care (Pro-MEDIC): study protocol for a randomised controlled trial.Trials · 2017Trial
- Effect of intravenous haloperidol on the duration of delirium and coma in critically ill patients (Hope-ICU): a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.The Lancet. Respiratory medicine · 2013Trial
- Association between stress hyperglycemia ratio and 72-hour delirium in critically ill patients: A retrospective cohort study from the MIMIC-IV database.Metabolism open · 2026Article
- Article
- Critical care delirium: prevention, identification and management: a narrative review.Anaesthesia · 2026Review
- Burden of and risk factors for neurological complications in critical illness.Intensive care medicine · 2026Review
- Neuroimmune Mechanisms Transforming Acute Injury to Long-Term Brain Dysfunction After Sepsis.Clinics in chest medicine · 2026Review
- Barriers and facilitators to the delivery of delirium care in intensive care units: an analysis informed by the Theoretical Domains Framework.Anaesthesia · 2026Article
- Neurocritical progression in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: pathological relevance and validation.Open life sciences · 2026Review
90 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
17 authors at 9 institutions in 8 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionDelirium is a frequent source of morbidity in intensive care units (ICUs). Most data on its epidemiology is from single-center studies. Our aim was to conduct a multicenter study to evaluate the epidemiology of delirium in the ICU.
methodsA 1-day point-prevalence study was undertaken in 104 ICUs from 11 countries in South and North America and Spain.
resultsIn total, 975 patients were screened, and 497 fulfilled inclusion criteria and were enrolled (median age, 62 years; 52.5% men; 16.7% and 19.9% for ICU and hospital mortality); 64% were admitted to the ICU because of medical causes, and sepsis was the main diagnosis (n = 76; 15.3%). In total, 265 patients were sedated with the Richmond agitation and sedation scale (RASS) deeper than -3, and only 232 (46.6%) patients could be evaluated with the confusion-assessment method for the ICU. The prevalence of delirium was 32.3%. Compared with patients without delirium, those with the diagnosis of delirium had a greater severity of illness at admission, demonstrated by higher sequential organ-failure assessment (SOFA (P = 0.004)) and simplified acute physiology score 3 (SAPS3) scores (P < 0.0001). Delirium was associated with increased ICU (20% versus 5.7%; P = 0.002) and hospital mortality (24 versus 8.3%; P = 0.0017), and longer ICU (P < 0.0001) and hospital length of stay (LOS) (22 (11 to 40) versus 7 (4 to 18) days; P < 0.0001). Previous use of midazolam (P = 0.009) was more frequent in patients with delirium. On multivariate analysis, delirium was independently associated with increased ICU mortality (OR = 3.14 (1.26 to 7.86); CI, 95%) and hospital mortality (OR = 2.5 (1.1 to 5.7); CI, 95%).
conclusionsIn this 1-day international study, delirium was frequent and associated with increased mortality and ICU LOS. The main modifiable risk factors associated with the diagnosis of delirium were the use of invasive devices and sedatives (midazolam).
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.