title: Diagnosing delirium by telephone.
abstract: To determine whether delirium can be diagnosed by telephone, we interviewed 41 subjects aged 65 years or older 1 month after repair of hip fracture, first by telephone and then face-to-face. Interviews included the modified telephone Mini-Mental State Examination and the Delirium Symptom Interview. Delirium was diagnosed using the Confusion Assessment Method diagnostic algorithm, and the telephone results were compared with the face-to-face results (the "gold standard"). Of 41 subjects, 6 were delirious by face-to-face assessment; all 6 were delirious by telephone (sensitivity 1.00). Of 35 patients not delirious by face-to-face assessment, 33 patients were not delirious by telephone (specificity = 0.94). We conclude that telephone interviews can effectively rule out delirium, but the positive diagnosis should be confirmed by a face-to-face assessment, especially in populations with a low prevalence of delirium.
authors.affiliation: Division of General Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: E R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Marcantonio
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Michaels
authors.forename: N M
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Resnick
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003693:Delirium / Q000175:diagnosis*; D003951:Diagnostic Errors; D005260:Female; D016330:Frail Elderly; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D008404:Massachusetts; D019114:Remote Consultation; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013689:Telephone