Using language descriptors to recognise delirium: a survey of clinicians and medical coders to identify delirium-suggestive words

Abstract

Objective: To develop a library of delirium-suggestive words. Design: Cross-sectional survey. Setting: Single tertiary referral hospital. Participants: Medical, nursing and allied health staff and medical coders. Main outcome measures: Frequency of graded response on a 5-point Likert scale to individual delirium-suggestive words. Results: Two-hundred and three complete responses were received from 227 survey respondents; the majority were medical and nursing staff (42.4% and 43.8% respectively), followed by allied health practitioners and medical coders (10.3% and 3.4%). Words that were “very likely” to suggest delirium were “confused/ confusion”, “delirious”, “disoriented/disorientation” an..