Psychopathology prior to critical illness and the risk of delirium onset during intensive care unit stay

Focus on delirium, sedation and neuro critical care 2019: towards a more brain-friendly environment?

“…Antecedents of mental health problems, especially recent anxiety and depression preceding the ARDS, and a lower level of education were the most important pre-ARDS risk factors for prolonged psychiatric morbidity. A similar association was found in a Dutch retrospective study of 1090 patients admitted to a mixed medical/surgical ICU [5] in which pre-ICU psychopathology increased the incidence of delirium by 30%.…”

Psychotropic medication use in former ICU patients with mental health problems: A prospective observational follow-up study

“…The literature has shown that prior psychopathology impacts the development of delirium in ICU patients [27]. Our study did not obtain data about psychopathology prior to critical illness, and we speculate that prior psychopathology could also be a risk factor for the development of mental health problems after ICU admission.…”

Anticholinergic drug exposure at intensive care unit admission affects the occurrence of delirium. A prospective cohort study

“…Psychotropic drugs particularly contribute to the ADS score, and it could therefore be hypothesized that the observed association of the ADS score with delirium might be due to the fact that psychotropic drugs are more often used by patients with pre-existing psychopathology, which increases the risk of delirium [40]. We could not adjust for pre-existing psychopathology as the classification that we used previously was based, in part, on psychotropic drugs use [40]. However, when we studied the association of an ADS score ≥ 2 points with delirium, we found that the strength of this relationship declined over time.…”