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Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.1676
igaa057.1676
Abstracts
Session 3020 (Paper)
Acute Care and Hospitalization (paper)
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
Clinicians’ Knowledge and Attitudes About Delirium Detection and Management
Shrestha Priyanka 1 Husser Erica 2 Berish Diane 3 Ngo Long 4 Boltz Marie 5 Inouye Sharon 6 Marcantonio Edward 4 Fick Donna 7 1 
Penn State University, State College, Pennsylvania, United States
2 
Penn State, Spring Mills, Pennsylvania, United States
3 
Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States
4 
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
5 
Penn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States
6 
Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
7 
Penn State, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States
2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”519 520
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
Delirium is a serious and potentially life-threatening problem, but it remains clinically under-recognized. Various factors contribute to this under-recognition, including limited understanding of delirium, insufficient training and application of delirium assessments, potential stigma for the patient and increased workload for the clinician. As a part of an NIH funded study testing a rapid two-step delirium identification protocol at two hospitals in the U.S. (one urban and one rural), clinicians completed a 12-item survey to assess their knowledge and attitudes about delirium and their confidence in preventing and managing delirium. Survey response options followed a 5-point rating scale (strongly disagree, disagree, undecided, agree, strongly agree). The sample for this analysis included 399 clinicians (MDs=53; RNs=235; CNAs=111). Chi-square was used to test for group differences between clinician types. Less than half of the clinicians reported agreeing with the statement, “delirium is largely preventable” (MDs: 47%; RN: 44%; CNA: 41%, p-value=0.021). MDs and RNs indicated a high level of confidence in recognizing delirium while CNAs endorsed lower levels of confidence (MDs: 87%; RN: 81%; CNA: 65%, p-value=0.001). All types of clinicians reported lower confidence in managing delirium (MDs: 29%; RN: 36%; CNA: 44%, p-value=0.117). 47% of CNAs and 37% of RNs agreed there is a need for additional training in caring for persons with delirium while only 21% of MDs agreed (p = 0.031). Understanding how different types of clinicians think and feel about delirium will inform training and communication initiatives, clinical implementation, and research on best practices for delirium identification and management.