Evaluation of the Effect of Aripiprazole Supplementation in the Prevention of Delirium in Patients Admitted to the General Intensive Care Unit

BACKGROUND: To prove the position of aripiprazole as a preventive and safe agent in delirium in patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU), it is necessary to conduct randomized controlled clinical trials with appropriate design. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this study, 80 patients were randomly divided into two groups of 40. Group A received placebo mart for one week, and group B received 15 mg aripiprazole daily (dissolved in 10 cc) daily. As a criterion for assessing delirium, the Confusion Assessment methods for the ICU (CAM-ICUs) were evaluated daily for patients. At the end of the study, the trends of CAM-ICU and CAM-ICU changes on day 7 were compared between the two groups. All statistical tests were performed in two domains with a significance level of 5% using the t-test. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 21 software was used to analyze the data. RESULTS: The use of aripiprazole in the studied indices was not statistically significant (P > 0.05). The results related to the length of stay in the ICU, showed that although the use of aripiprazole has reduced the length of hospitalization of patients in the ICU, this rate of reduction, was not significant (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: The use of aripiprazole with the approach of reducing the risk or controlling the occurrence of delirium on patients admitted to the intensive care unit, despite creating some beneficial effects such as reducing the length of hospital stay in the ICU, cannot be clearly and significantly effective.