Analysis and Countermeasures of 101 Inpatients with Falls in Internal Medicine Department

Abstract

Falling of inpatients can cause serious injuries to patients, family members and caregivers. It damages patients' physical and mental health, increases the remedy cost of medical institution, and affects the quality of nursing service in hospital. The aim of this study is to analyze the current situation of falls of inpatients in internal medicine department, so as to provide reference information for improving patient safety management and hospital quality control. With the help of the method of retrospective investigation, the number of inpatients with falls in the First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University from January to December 2019 was reviewed, and the incidence, causes, time and nurse patient ratio were analyzed. There were total 101 falls of inpatients in internal medicine department in year 2019, accounting for 58% of the fall patients in the hospital, the fall rate of internal medicine department inpatients was 0.5‰. The injury rate of grade1 and above was 54.45%. The incidence of falls has three epidemiological characteristics, mainly for the elderly over 60 years old, accounting for 71.3%, the most commonplace to fall is the toilet, the high incidence period is 22:01-07:00. Drugs are one of the main factors leading to falls, with sedative-hypnoticdrugs (benzodiazepines) being the most common, followed by antidiabetic drugs, antihypertensive drugs and diuretics. Patients at high risk of falling, despite the presence of caregivers is 69.3%, had a higher incidence of falls. A nurse on duty attended to 10 to 50 patients in the falling event. From the above outcome, it is illustrated that the incidence of fall injury in medical inpatients is higher. The main population is the elderly and patients taking sedatives, sleeping pills or hypoglycemic drugs. Nurses need to keep an eye out for patients who take medications that can easily lead to falls. Hospital management departments should strengthen the training of nursing staff and new nurses, establish safety culture and improve nurses' consciousness of fall prevention. Head nurses should take flexible shift system to effectively reduce the incidence of falls.