Introduction:

Acute confusional syndrome or delirium is a severe psychiatric disorder of frequent presentation in hospitalized elderly patients. It worsens likely in the late afternoon and evening hours, with a great impact on night care.

Objectives:

To evaluate the effectiveness of specific nursing care for sundown delirium in hospitalized patients.

Methods:

Quasi-experimental clinical trial in two hospitalization units of internal medicine of a high-complexity hospital. A control group and an experimental group were identified by convenience sampling. In both groups, patients with delirium were selected, using the validated scale Intensive Care Delirium Screening Checklist. The experimental group was exposed to a specific care plan, considering the bibliography; and the control group was exposed to a standard care plan. Regarding the results of delirium indicators, before and after the application of the care plans in both groups, contrast tests were performed (ANOVA, t-Student and Fisher’s Chi-square test).

Results:

With an incidence of 12-15%, the control and experimental groups showed homogeneous results in the delirium test PRE (p>0.05). Age, reason for admission, gender, and number of interruptions during sleep did not show repercussion on delirium results. After the application of the care plans, the experimental group showed a significant reduction in delirium rates (p<0.05), and no significant changes were obtained in the control group (p>0.05).

Conclusions:

The specific care plan for patients with delirium was shown to be effective in improving the indicators of the delirium test and avoiding the worsening of the health status.

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