• Dimitrios Adamis, Chara Dimitriou, Stella Anifantaki, Alexandros Zachariadis, Irene Astrinaki, Athanasios Alegakis, Helen Mari, and Nikolaos Tsiatsiotis.
• Research and Academic Institute of Athens, Greece, 27 Themistokleous Street & Akadimias, Athens 106 77, Greece. dimaadamis@yahoo.com
• Intensive Crit Care Nurs. 2012 Dec 1;28(6):337-43.

ObjectivesDelirium is associated with the most adverse outcomes in critically ill patients but it is often undiagnosed and untreated. The Confusion Assessment Method for Intensive Care Unit (CAM-ICU) is widely used for delirium assessment. This scale, however, has not been translated and validated into the Greek language. This paper is a report of the translation and validation of the CAM-ICU into Greek.Research MethodologyThe applicability and validity of CAM-ICU was tested in two Greek general ICUs. Each patient was included in the study only once. Inter-rater reliability and concurrent validity of both raters compared to the gold standard (DSM-IV) was calculated.ResultsStudy sample consisted of 71 patients. Based on psychiatric diagnosis the prevalence of delirium was 33.8%. Compared to the reference standard for diagnosing delirium, the two study raters who used the CAM-ICU had sensitivities of 87.5% and 79.0%, specificities of 91.0% and 87.0%, and good inter-rater reliability (κ=0.75). Cronbach's alpha was 0.84 (95% CI 0.77-0.89). The mean CAM-ICU administration time was 6 minutes and 30 seconds.ConclusionCAM-ICU seems to be a valid and reliable instrument for delirium detection in Greek intensive care patients, which can be easily incorporated in every day clinical practice after appropriate training.Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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