Management of delirium on acute geriatric wards: A survey in Belgian hospitals

Nurses' Knowledge and Practices in Cases of Acute and Chronic Confusion: A Questionnaire Survey

“…Our results supported those of Steen et al. (), finding little systematized intervention for confusion. Marques (), on the other hand, found that nurses do, in fact, distinguish between AC and CC patients when prescribing nursing intervention since they felt that AC patients promised greater potential for successful intervention.…”

“…These lacunas are not surprising when the lack of knowledge about approaches to dealing with AC/delirium is taken into consideration. In Belgium, for example, a study of acute geriatric wards found that only 26.2% had written policies for managing delirium while, hospital‐wide, only 15.4% wards had such explicit guidelines (Steen et al., ). Although most of these geriatric wards had either written or verbal guidelines for preventing delirium, few had written protocols for identifying the causes (15.4%) or managing delirium (13.8%).…”