DEL-IB — Delirium Item Bank

What this tool is and how to interpret its evidence

The Delirium Item Bank (DEL-IB) is a measurement-harmonisation resource, not a single fixed bedside questionnaire. It places conceptually related observations from established delirium instruments on a common psychometric framework. The development work used the long and short Confusion Assessment Method, Delirium Observation Screening Scale, Delirium Rating Scale-Revised-98 total and severity scores, and Memorial Delirium Assessment Scale. The resulting bank contains 50 harmonised items, and six crosswalks allow selected total scores to be estimated across instruments. Because a crosswalk is a statistical conversion, it is not identical to administering the target instrument.

Helfand and colleagues combined three datasets from the United States, Ireland and Belgium. They included 600 hospitalised adults aged 65 years or older who contributed 1,623 assessments, with DSM-5 delirium status available for comparison. Item-response methods were used to examine dimensionality and link scores. A subsequent paper demonstrated how the bank could be used to evaluate cut-points and construct candidate instruments.

DEL-IB may help researchers combine studies, compare legacy datasets and design efficient measures. Its performance depends on population, available items and the assumptions of the linking model. It neither grants permission to reproduce source instruments nor replaces their validated administration procedures. The project provides the bank, crosswalks and statistical code through an authoritative NIDUS resource; users should consult those materials and cite the original work.