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The purpose of this study undertaken in an acute care hospital was to evaluate sensitivity and specificity of the documentation of nurse-reported delirium symptoms in medical charts. This is a descriptive study based on the clinical assessments of a study nurse and nursing notes in the medical charts of 226 delirious older patients newly admitted to an acute care hospital. The results of this prospective validation study indicated that documentation of delirium symptoms is poor. Disorientation, agitation and altered level of consciousness were the three symptoms yielding a higher level of sensitivity, but even so said symptoms were reported in less than a third of the medical charts. Univariate analysis suggested that higher comorbidity level, more severe symptoms of delirium and the use of physical restraints were associated with more valid documentation of delirium symptoms in medical charts. Lastly, this study corroborates results of previous studies, indicating that documentation of delirium symptoms in medical charts can be improved. Future study should target improving nurse documentation of delirium symptoms in medical charts.

Background: There is considerable interest today in shared decision-making (SDM), defined as a decision-making process jointly shared by patients and their health care provider. However, the data show that SDM has not been broadly adopted yet. Consequently, the main goal of this proposal is to bring together the resources and the expertise needed to develop an interdisciplinary and international research team on the implementation of SDM in clinical practice using a theory-based dyadic perspective. Methods: Participants include researchers from Canada, US, UK, and Netherlands, representing medicine, nursing, psychology, community health and epidemiology. In order to develop a collaborative research network that takes advantage of the expertise of the team members, the following research activities are planned: 1) establish networking and on-going communication through internet-based forum, conference calls, and a bi-weekly e-bulletin; 2) hold a two-day workshop with two key experts (one in theoretical underpinnings of behavioral change, and a second in dyadic data analysis), and invite all investigators to present their views on the challenges related to the implementation of SDM in clinical practices; 3) conduct a secondary analyses of existing dyadic datasets to ensure that discussion among team members is grounded in empirical data; 4) build capacity with involvement of graduate students in the workshop and online forum; and 5) elaborate a position paper and an international multi-site study protocol. Discussion: This study protocol aims to inform researchers, educators, and clinicians interested in improving their understanding of effective strategies to implement shared decision-making in clinical practice using a theory-based dyadic perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]