Qiu Y, Rivas E, Tanios M, Sreedharan R, Mao G, Ince I, Salih A, Saab R, Devarajan J, Ruetzler K, Turan A: Effect of seasons on delirium in postoperative critically ill patients: a retrospective analysis. Braz J Anesthesiol 2023; 73: 3-9- Outcomes Research Consortium

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Qiu Y, Rivas E, Tanios M, Sreedharan R, Mao G, Ince I, Salih A, Saab R, Devarajan J, Ruetzler K, Turan A: Effect of seasons on delirium in postoperative critically ill patients: a retrospective analysis. Braz J Anesthesiol 2023; 73: 3-9

August 27, 2022

Background and objectives:
Postoperative delirium is common in critically ill patients and is known to have several predisposing and precipitating factors. Seasonality affects cognitive func- tion which has a more dysfunctional pattern during winter. We, therefore, aimed to test whether seasonal variation is associated with the occurrence of delirium and hospital Length Of Stay (LOS) in critically ill non-cardiac surgical populations.
Methods:
We conducted a retrospective analysis of adult patients recovering from non-cardiac surgery at the Cleveland Clinic between March 2013 and March 2018 who stayed in Surgical Inten- sive Care Unit (SICU) for at least 48 hours and had daily Confusion Assessment Method Intensive Care Unit (CAM-ICU) assessments for delirium. The incidence of delirium and LOS were summa- rized by season and compared using chi-square test and non-parametric tests, respectively. A logistic regression model was used to assess the association between delirium and LOS with sea- sons, adjusted for potential confounding variables.
Results: Among 2300 patients admitted to SICU after non-cardiac surgeries, 1267 (55%) had post- operative delirium. The incidence of delirium was 55% in spring, 54% in summer, 55% in fall and 57% in winter, which was not significantly different over the four seasons (p = 0.69). The median LOS was 12 days (IQR = [8, 19]) overall. There was a significant difference in LOS across the four seasons (p = 0.018). LOS during summer was 12% longer (95% CI: 1.04, 1.21; p = 0.002) than in winter.
Conclusions:
In adult non-cardiac critically ill surgical patients, the incidence of postoperative delirium is not associated with season. Noticeably, LOS was longer in summer than in winter. © 2022 Sociedade Brasileira de Anestesiologia. Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/ 4.0/).