Delirium in paediatrics: early detection, diagnosis and nursing care

Abstract

Introduction

Delirium is the most frequent manifestation of central nervous system dysfunction, a fluctuating and acute cognitive alteration in the critically ill patient.

Objective

To analyse the scientific production about delirium in paediatric patients in the Intensive Care Unit on early detection, diagnosis, and nursing care.

Methodology

An integrative review of primary studies was conducted in three databases PubMed, Web of Science, SCOPUS, with the search strategy (Intensive Care Units, Paediatric) and (Delirium) and (Nursing Care), criteria of inclusion of primary studies published between 2011 and 2019, in English and Spanish available in full text.

Results

After analytical reading, 15 primary studies were selected, our results contribute to early detection, validated evaluation methods to diagnose delirium in Spanish-speaking paediatric patients such as PsCAM-ICU, PCAM-ICU and Cornell as well as nursing in the care of critical paediatric patients with the presence of delirium.

Conclusions

Cognitive assessment using validated scales in the paediatric patient allows the practice of the nursing professional in the paediatric unit to go beyond a series of instrumental tasks in the PICU and allows prevention to follow-up and control of cases in the delirious patient.