What do nursing students know about delirium? A cross-sectional study and scenario analysis
Abstract
Objective
To assess the level of nursing students’ knowledge about delirium and its associated risk factors. Delirium is a clinical syndrome characterized by alterations in cognition and psychomotor activity. Since delirium is common among geriatric patients, adequate preparedness of nursing students to assess and manage delirious geriatric patients is necessary to improve potential nurses’ quality of care and communication with this group. Limited research work was conducted to address nursing students’ knowledge about delirium.
Methods
This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted from October 2022 to February 2023. A convenience sampling was used, and 319 valid questionnaires were obtained from nursing students from six Jordanian governmental and private universities, who were at least in their third academic year. An adopted delirium knowledge scale was used to collect data. Descriptive statistics and an independent t-test were used for data analysis.
Results
The mean for general knowledge about delirium was 57.5%. The mean for knowledge of delirium risk factors was 61.8%. Nursing students in their fourth academic year scored significantly higher on both general knowledge and risk knowledge scales than students in the third academic year.
Conclusions
Nursing students’ knowledge regarding delirium and its risk factors was low. Educational efforts should be maximized for incorporating and addressing the topic of delirium in the undergraduate nursing curriculum. Implications of this study include revising nursing curricula to ensure that students receive enough education on delirium, including its detection, diagnosis, and management. The implications also include giving nursing students the chance to gain experience in caring for delirious patients and providing them with the tools and resources they need to assess and manage delirium.
© 2025 Rana A. Al-Awamleh, Ibrahim Ayasreh, Omar Khraisat, Jafar M. Alkhawaldeh, Haitham Khatatbeh, Nisser Alhroub, Manar Abu-abbas, Ahmad Salameh Al-Awamleh, published by Shanxi Medical Periodical Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.