Performance and agreement of risk stratification instruments for postoperative delirium in persons aged 50 years or...

Several risk stratification instruments for postoperative delirium in older people have been developed because early interventions may prevent delirium. We investigated the performance and agreement of nine commonly used risk stratification instruments in an independent validation cohort of consecutive elective and emergency surgical patients aged ≥50 years with ≥1 risk factor for postoperative delirium. Data was collected prospectively. Delirium was diagnosed according to DSM-IV-TR criteria. The observed incidence of postoperative delirium was calculated per risk score per risk stratification instrument. In addition, the risk stratification instruments were compared in terms of area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC), and positive and negative predictive value. Finally, the positive agreement between the risk stratification instruments was calculated. When data required for an exact implementation of the original risk stratification instruments was not available, we used alternative data that was comparable. The study population included 292 patients: 60% men; mean age (SD), 66 (8) years; 90% elective surgery. The incidence of postoperative delirium was 9%. The maximum observed incidence per risk score was 50% (95%CI, 15-85%); for eight risk stratification instruments, the maximum observed incidence per risk score was ≤25%. The AUC (95%CI) for the risk stratification instruments varied between 0.50 (0.36-0.64) and 0.66 (0.48-0.83). No AUC was statistically significant from 0.50 (p≥0.11). Positive predictive values of the risk stratification instruments varied between 0-25%, negative predictive values between 89-95%. Positive agreement varied between 0-66%. No risk stratification instrument showed clearly superior performance. In conclusion, in this independent validation cohort, the performance and agreement of commonly used risk stratification instruments for postoperative delirium was poor. Although some caution is needed because the risk stratification instruments were not implemented exactly as described in the original studies, we think that their usefulness in clinical practice can be questioned.