bCAM: Brief Confusion Assessment Method
2013bCAM is a brief CAM-family assessment developed for older emergency-department patients. It may be used alone or within a locally selected workflow.
Classification
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Tool and original sources
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Original and selected diagnostic-accuracy papers
- Original paperHan JH, Wilson A, Vasilevskis EE, Shintani A, Schnelle JF, Dittus RS, et al. Diagnosing delirium in older emergency department patients: validity and reliability of the delirium triage screen and the brief confusion assessment method. Annals of emergency medicine. 2013;62(5):457-465. doi: 10.1016/j.annemergmed.2013.05.003. PMID: 23916018.
This paper reports the original validation of bCAM. It is the main source for the method, its intended use and the evidence available at publication.
- Selected diagnostic-accuracy studyHendry K, Quinn TJ, Evans J, Scortichini V, Miller H, Burns J, et al. Evaluation of delirium screening tools in geriatric medical inpatients: a diagnostic test accuracy study. Age and ageing. 2016;45(6):832-837. doi: 10.1093/ageing/afw130. PMID: 27503794.
This diagnostic-accuracy study evaluated bCAM in geriatric medical assessment unit of an urban teaching hospital against a DSM-5 clinical assessment. It reported sensitivity of 70.3% and specificity of 91.4% in 387 patients with complete bCAM data within a 500-patient consecutive cohort.
- Selected diagnostic-accuracy studyBaten V, Busch HJ, Busche C, Schmid B, Heupel-Reuter M, Perlov E, et al. Validation of the Brief Confusion Assessment Method for Screening Delirium in Elderly Medical Patients in a German Emergency Department. Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine. 2018;25(11):1251-1262. doi: 10.1111/acem.13449. PMID: 29738102.
This diagnostic-accuracy study evaluated bCAM in german interdisciplinary high-volume emergency department against a DSM-5 clinical assessment. It reported sensitivity of 65.2% and specificity of 93.8% in 288 non-surgical medical patients aged 70 years or older.
At a glance
- Purpose
- Episodic assessment
- Population
- Adult
- Setting
- Emergency department
- Time
- <2 min
- Items
- 4
- Score or threshold
- Feature-based CAM-family classification; see the authorised materials.
Format: A brief emergency-department CAM-family assessment combining a short cognitive assessment with four clinical feature ratings. It is often used after a sensitive first-step screen; tasks and decision logic are not reproduced here.
- Strengths: Fast, more-specific follow-up assessment for the ED
- Limitations: Lower sensitivity than the paired DTS; no result is definitive on its own
Evidence
Reported sensitivity and specificity
Original validation, n=406; physician and RA raters.
More evidence and citation details
- Full name
- Brief Confusion Assessment Method
- Also known as
- bCAM
- Related profiles
- DTS, DTS/bCAM combination
- Evidence summary
- multi
- Diagnostic-accuracy studies
- 5
- Reference standard
- DSM-IV-TR (psychiatrist)
- Real-world use
- In one large report, completion ranged from 12% in labour/delivery to 98% on medical services during phased implementation; setting and implementation stage both differed. (Penfold 2024)
- Citation
- Han JH, Wilson A, Vasilevskis EE, Shintani A, Schnelle JF, Dittus RS, Graves AJ, Storrow AB, Shuster J, Ely EW Diagnosing delirium in older emergency department patients: validity and reliability of the delirium triage screen and the brief confusion assessment method Annals of emergency medicine. 2013;62(5):457-465. PMID 23916018
Copyright and reuse
- Version
- CIBS-hosted bCAM flowsheet
- Information checked
- 2026-07-19
Instrument-specific terms apply. See the access and copyright policy or send a correction.
Sources checked 2026-07-29. How profiles are prepared.