Replacing the Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment—Alcohol revised with the modified Richmond Agitation and Sedation Scale for alcohol withdrawal to support management of alcohol withdrawal symptoms: potential impact on length of stay and complications

We evaluated impact on length of stay and possible complications of replacing the Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment—Alcohol Revised (CIWA-Ar) scale with a slightly modified Richmond Agitation and Sedation Scale (mRASS-AW) to support managing patients admitted with alcohol withdrawal symptoms in a community hospital. Since mRASS-AW is viewed as easier and quicker to use than CIWA-Ar, provided use of mRASS-AW does not worsen outcomes, it could be a safe alternative in a busy ED environment and offer an opportunity to release nursing time to care.

Retrospective time-series analysis of mean quarterly length of stay. All analyses exclusively used our hospital’s administrative discharge diagnoses database. During April 1st 2012 to December 14th 2014, the CIWA-Ar was used in the ED and in-patient units to guide benzodiazepine dosing decisions for alcohol withdrawal symptoms. After this point, CIWA-Ar was replaced with mRASS-AW. Data was evaluated until December 31st 2020. Primary outcome: mean quarterly length of stay. Secondary outcomes: delirium, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, other post-admission complications, mortality.

N = 1073 patients. No association between length of stay and scale switch (slope change 0.3 (95% CI − 0.03 to 0.6), intercept change, 0.06 (− 0.03 to 0.2). CIWA-Ar (n = 317) mean quarterly length of stay, 5.7 days (95% 4.2–7.1), mRASS-AW (n = 756) 5.0 days (95% CI 4.3–5.6). Incidence of delirium, ICU admission or mortality was not different. However, incidence of other post-admission complications was higher with CIWA-Ar (6.6%) than mRASS-AW (3.4%) (p = 0.020).

This was the first study to compare patient outcomes associated with using mRASS-AW for alcohol withdrawal symptoms outside the ICU. Replacing CIWA-Ar with mRASS-AW did not worsen length of stay or complications. These findings provide some evidence that mRASS-AW could be considered an alternative to CIWA-Ar and potentially may provide an opportunity to release nursing time to care.