BACKGROUND:

Delirium is a clinical transitory and reversible syndrome, occurs frequently in a setting of an acute disease process, it is characterized by the disorder of the consciousness accompanied by a change in the cognitive functions, it occurs throughout a brief period, usually hours or days and tends to vary during the day. Delirium is an important public health problem and it is considered independent predictor of negative clinical results with increased mortality, hospital stay, attention cost and cognitive damage to long-term. The available evidence does not support the administration of drugs to prevent delirium in patients with acute disease.

OBJECTIVE:

To prove the safety and efficacy of haloperidol for the treatment and prophylaxis of delirium.

MATERIAL AND METHOD:

A clinical, controlled, prospective, cross-sectional, comparative study was done, in which patients hospitalized at Internal Medicine service of General Hospital Xoco, Mexico City, were included. Scale PREDELIRIC was calculated at the entering of patients, including in the study those with high risk of delirium (PRE-DELIRIC >50%). Patients were randomly distributed into two groups, in the group 1 non pharmacological measures of delirium prevention were applied plus the administration of prophylactic haloperidol and group 2 was given non pharmacological measures of delirium prevention plus placebo.

RESULTS:

There were included 84 patients, distributed into two groups, each one with 42 patients, from which 33 (40%) were male; 42% suffer delirium, mix type was the most common. Prophylaxis with haloperidol did not show to reduce the incidence of delirium (54% vs 46%, p=0.51) compared with control group. Prophylactic haloperidol did not show significant differences compared to placebo in delaying the beginning of delirium (mean of 6.3 days vs 6.8 days, p=0.98), in days of hospital stay (mean 9.5 vs 12 days, p=0.56), or in the lasting of delirium (mean 3 vs 3.5 days, p=0.32). Prophylaxis with haloperidol did not show either effect on mortality (20% vs 10%, p=0.21). There were not secondary effects with haloperidol.

CONCLUSIONS:

Haloperidol administration to prevent delirium in patients with high risk of having it did not show significant difference compared to placebo in reducing delirium incidence, delaying the starting of symptoms, in reducing their lasting, in reducing the hospital stay nor in reducing mortality. According to our results, by now it is not possible to recommend the administration of haloperidol in the prophylaxis of delirium in patients with high risk of having it.

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