Der Chirurg; Zeitschrift für alle Gebiete der operativen Medizen
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The incidence of postoperative delirium was assessed in 92 patients on a general surgical intensive care unit. Postoperative delirium was diagnosed in 39 patients (42%). Most of the cases were diagnosed on the second postoperative day and the median duration was seven days. ⋯ In univariate analysis the variables age, preoperative therapy for heart failure, respirator therapy, dobutamin therapy and lowest capillary pO2 on day one were significantly associated with later development of delirium, whereas preoperative peritonitis, and history of stroke or hypertension were only borderline significant. A predictive model with three parameters emerged from multiple logistic regression analysis: after correction for age (p = 0.001), respirator therapy (p = 0.020), and capillary pO2 on day one (p = 0.049) none of the remaining variables proved of additional significance. The statistical model yielded a predictive accuracy of 78%.