Predicting the Risk of Postoperative Delirium in Elderly Patients Undergoing Hip Arthroplasty: Development and Assessment of a Novel Nomogram

Abstract

Objective To construct and internally validate a nomogram that predicts the likelihood of postoperative delirium in a cohort of elderly individuals undergoing hip arthroplasty. Methods Data for a total of 681 elderly patients underwent hip arthroplasty were retrospectively collected and divided into a model (n = 477) and a validation cohort (n = 204) according to the principle of 7:3 distribution temporally. The assessment of postoperative cognitive function was conducted through the utilization of The Confusion Assessment Method (CAM). The nomogram model for postoperative cognitive impairments was established by a combination of Lasso regression and logistic regression. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, calibration plot, and decision curve analysis (DCA) were used to evaluate the performance. Results The nomogram utilized various predictors, including age, body mass index (BMI), education, preoperative Barthel Index, preoperative hemoglobin level, history of diabetes, and history of cerebrovascular disease, to forecast the likelihood of postoperative delirium in patients. The area under the ROC curves (AUC) for the nomogram, incorporating the aforementioned predictors, was 0.836 (95% CI: 0.797–0.875) for the training set and 0.817 (95% CI: 0.755–0.880) for the validation set. The calibration curves for both sets indicated a good agreement between the nomogram’s predictions and the actual probabilities. Conclusion The use of this novel nomogram can help clinicians predict the likelihood of delirium after hip arthroplasty in elderly patients and help prevent and manage it in advance.