Premium
Rating the severity of delirium: The delirium assessment scale
Author(s) -
O'keeffe Shaun T.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
international journal of geriatric psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.28
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1099-1166
pISSN - 0885-6230
DOI - 10.1002/gps.930090708
Subject(s) - delirium , rating scale , scale (ratio) , psychology , psychiatry , medicine , cartography , geography , developmental psychology
Explicit operational definitions of the DSM‐3 criteria for delirium have recently been published. In this study, the reliability of the Delirium Assessment Scale (DAS), which uses the operationalized criteria to determine the severity of delirium symptoms, was examined. Three independent assessors examined four groups of patients —patients with delirium, patients with delirium and dementia, patients with dementia alone and patients without cognitive impairment. Sensitivity (83–88%) and specificity (79–88%) of the operationalized definitions for the diagnosis of delirium were high. Satisfactory interrater agreement was obtained for all individual symptoms of the DAS (kappa = 0.66–0.99). These results suggest that the DAS may be suitable for monitoring the severity of delirium; prospective studies are required to confirm this hypothesis.