SDS-N — Subjective Delirium Screening Scale by Nurse

What this tool is and how to interpret its evidence

Published in 2020, SDS-N is described here as monitoring / repeated screening, screening / case-finding for adults admitted to surgical wards for at least five days. The linked study examined it in General / acute hospital, Perioperative. The recorded form contains 4 scored items or observations. The reported administration time is nurse observation; exact completion time not reported. The catalogue records the published scoring or threshold information as Weighted total ≥2 of 5.

The linked source is Kubota K and colleagues, Development of a Simple and Practical Delirium Screening Tool for Use in Surgical Wards in The journal of nursing research : JNR (2020); this catalogue treats it as development and internal bootstrap evaluation; no independent external validation identified. For SDS-N, the evidence stage is one eligible diagnostic-accuracy study. The reconciled DTA dataset associates 1 eligible study with SDS-N. The first recorded accuracy result reports sensitivity 61% and specificity 96.7%; the recorded sample is 2168. AUC 81.9% in 2,168 retrospective surgical-ward patients; internal bootstrap assessment only.

Recorded limitations include development and internal bootstrap evaluation only; sensitivity was modest; reference classification used routine DST or CAM-ICU. Repeated SDS-N observation may capture fluctuation, but interpretation depends on when and how observations are collected. For SDS-N, no verified public instrument form is recorded; the source article documents the tool but is not a substitute administration form.