Associations of albumin and nutritional index factors with delirium in patients admitted to the cardiac intensive care unit

Tae Wan Kim; Ryoung Eun Ko; Soo Jin Na; Chi Ryang Chung; Ki Hong Choi; Chi-Min Park; Jeong Hoon Yang

doi:10.3389/fcvm.2023.1100160

Associations of albumin and nutritional index factors with delirium in patients admitted to the cardiac intensive care unit

Front Cardiovasc Med. 2023 Mar 3:10:1100160. doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2023.1100160. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Tae Wan Kim¹, Ryoung Eun Ko¹, Soo Jin Na¹, Chi Ryang Chung¹, Ki Hong Choi², Chi-Min Park¹, Jeong Hoon Yang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Critical Care Medicine, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
² Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Heart Vascular Stroke Institute, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.

Abstract

Background: Limited data are available on the association of malnutrition with the occurrence of delirium in the cardiac intensive care unit (CICU). Thus, we aimed to analyze whether nutritional indices and their components can predict the development of delirium in CICU.

Methods: We enrolled 2,783 patients admitted to the CICU of Samsung Medical Center for more than 24 h between September 2012 and December 2018. We assessed the nutritional status at admission using three indices, the Prognostic Nutrition Index (PNI), the Geriatric Nutritional Risk Index (GNRI), and the Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT). Then, we compared predictive performances for the occurrence of delirium among nutritional indices using Delong's test.

Results: Delirium developed in 678 patients (24.3%) assessed three times daily for 7 days of CICU stay. Nutritional indices had fair predictive performance for development of delirium in critically ill cardiac patients using the area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUROC: 0.729 for the GNRI, 0.728 for PNI, and 0.762 for CONUT). Furthermore, the AUROC of albumin alone (0.77, 95% CI, 0.75-0.79) was significantly greater than that of either GNRI (p < 0.001) or PNI (p < 0.001). In a multivariable analysis including each component of nutritional indices, albumin was a significant predictor for delirium but not absolute lymphocyte count, bodyweight/ideal bodyweight, or total cholesterol level as a component of nutritional indices.

Conclusion: Predictive performances of nutritional indices for the occurrence of delirium were acceptable in patients admitted to CICU. Albumin alone might be a helpful and straightforward indicator for the occurrence of delirium.

Keywords: albumin; cardiac intensive care unit; delirium; malnutrition; nutrition indexes.