Sujin Yin,* Jingen Dai,* Lingling Lu

Department of General Surgery, The Affiliated Suzhou Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Suzhou Municipal Hospital, Gusu School, Nanjing Medical University, Suzhou, 215000, People’s Republic of China

*These authors contributed equally to this work

Correspondence: Lingling Lu, Department of General surgery, The Affiliated Suzhou Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Suzhou Municipal Hospital, Gusu School, Nanjing Medical University, No. 26 of Daoqian Street, Suzhou District, Suzhou, 215000, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86 15262410849, Fax +86 51262362015, Email Lu_linglingyy@163.com

Objective: To retrieve, evaluate, and summarise the clinical evidence for non-pharmacological interventions in adult postoperative delirium (POD), encompassing the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative phases.
Methods: The methods included conducting searches on UpToDate Clinical Consultants, the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, BMJ Best Practice, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, PubMed, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang, VIP, and the Chinese Biomedical Literature Service System. Clinical practice guidelines, clinical decision-making, evidence summaries, evidence synthesis, expert consensus, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses on non-pharmacological interventions for adult POD were examined, and the search period spanned between the establishment of each database and 30 October 2023.
Results: A total of 17 documents were included, comprising three guidelines, one expert consensus, one clinical decision-making article, four evidence summaries, three systematic reviews, and five meta-analyses. These documents primarily focused on the following three aspects: preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative care. In total, 30 “best evidence” instances were compiled.
Conclusion: Considering the complexity and potential harm of adult POD, an accurate and timely evaluation of high-risk factors, alongside effective medical nursing strategies, is vital in its prevention and treatment. Non-pharmacological interventions remain the preferred choice for preventing and treating POD. Medical institutions should establish standardised processes for non-pharmacological intervention in adult POD, based on evidence-based medicine, to enhance the level of clinical care in this field.

Keywords: adult postoperative delirium, non-pharmacological intervention, evidence-based nursing, perioperative care, evidence-based medicine