SynthesisEuropean journal of medical research2025
Haloperidol for the treatment of delirium in ICU patients: a systematic review and meta‑analysis.
Synthesis in European journal of medical research, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper, 1 of them a synthesis 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Inflammation and delirium in critically Ill patients: a review.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesHaloperidol is the most frequently prescribed medication for managing delirium in the intensive care unit (ICU). However, there is limited and inconclusive evidence regarding its efficacy. A meta-analysis was conducted by pooling data from recent clinical randomized controlled trials to assess the effectiveness of haloperidol in adult ICU patients with delirium.
methodsStudies were searched in PubMed, Embase and Cochrane Library databases on August 10, 2024. We performed a meta-analysis to estimate the efficacy of haloperidol for the treatment of ICU adult patients with delirium. This study is registered with INPLASY, number 202480104. The estimates are expressed as odds ratio (OR) or mean difference (MD) with a 95% confidence interval (CI).
resultsA total of 2863 patients were included in the analyses. All the included studies were randomized controlled trials. The frequency of patients diagnosed with delirium used both confusion assessment method of intensive care unit (CAM-ICU) and intensive care delirium screening checklist (ICDSC) was 34% (n = 2863), and used CAM-ICU only was 66% (n = 2863). There was no difference in short-term (28-30 days) mortality between the two groups [OR = 0.89, 95% CI 0.60-1.32, P = 0.56] and long-term (90 days to 1 year) mortality [OR = 0.87, 95% CI 0.70-1.07, P = 0.19]. Furthermore, the haloperidol group demonstrated an advantage in reducing the length of ICU stay [MD = -1.13, 95% CI - 1.93-- 0.32, P < 0.05] compared to the placebo group, with no statistically significant difference in length of hospital stay [MD = - 0.24, 95% CI -1.71-1.24, P = 0.75].
conclusionsHaloperidol showed a significant trend in reducing the length of ICU stay. However, there was no statistical difference between the two groups in terms of delirium reduction.
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.