Associations between patient symptoms and falls in an acute care hospital: A cross‐sectional study

Lerdal, Anners; Sigurdsen, Line Wangsvik; Hammerstad, Heidi; Granheim, Tove Irene

doi:10.1111/jocn.14364

Cited by 21 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Patients expressing discomfort due to these symptoms were 2-5 times more likely to fall. However, long -term studies are needed to confirm the use of COMT inhibitors as a predictor of falls 36 .…”

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confidence: 99%

Falls in Parkinson's disease: the impact of disease progression, treatment, and motor complications

Lima

de-Almeida

Bonfadini

et al. 2022

Dement. neuropsychol.

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ABSTRACT. The prevalence of Parkinson's disease (PD) tends to increase worldwide in the coming decades. Thus, the incidence of falls is likely to increase, with a relevant burden on the health care system. Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate clinical factors and drug use associated with falls in PD patients. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study at the Movement Disorders outpatient clinic of a tertiary hospital in Northeast Brazil. We performed structured interviews to collect sociodemographic and clinical data. Functional capacity was assessed using the Schwab and England Activities of Daily Living Scale and the modified Hoehn and Yahr Staging Scale. We divided the study sample into non-fallers (no falls) and fallers (≥1 fall), and non-recurrent (≤1 fall) and recurrent fallers (>1 fall). Results: The study population comprised 327 PD patients (48% women), with a mean age of 70 years. The mean disease duration was 9.9±6.9 years. The most prevalent comorbidities were depression (47.2%), hypertension (44.0%), and type 2 diabetes mellitus (21.5%). The logistic regression analysis revealed that hallucinations, amantadine, and catechol-O-methyltransferase inhibitors (entacapone) were independently associated with falls in PD patients. Also, hallucinations, dyskinesia, and the use of amantadine were independently associated with recurrent falls. Conclusions: Health care providers play an essential role in fall prevention in PD patients, particularly by identifying older adults experiencing dyskinesia and visual hallucinations. Prospective studies should investigate the use of amantadine as a risk factor for falls in PD patients.

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confidence: 99%

Falls in Parkinson's disease: the impact of disease progression, treatment, and motor complications

Lima

de-Almeida

Bonfadini

et al. 2022

Dement. neuropsychol.

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“…Similarly, Vasilakis et al (2015:35) reported that medical patients contributed to 57.3% of the falls in their study, surgical patients to 22.3%, and patients in other categories to 20.4%. In a study conducted in Norway by Lerdal et al (2018Lerdal et al ( :1826, it was found that the majority of falls occurred in the medical wards.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors influencing patient falls in a private hospital group in the Cape Metropole of the Western Cape

Rensburg

Merwe

Crowley

2020

Health SA Gesondheid

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Background: The fall rate of patients in hospitals is a worldwide concern due to the impact falls have on patients, the family or relatives, as well as the healthcare setting. Factors influencing patient falls are categorised as intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic factors refers to physical conditions and the extrinsic factors include the environment of the patient, nursing staffing levels and skill mix.Aim: The study aimed to determine the factors that influence patient falls.Setting: A private hospital group in the Cape Metropole of the Western Cape.Methods: A quantitative retrospective descriptive research approach was used by analysing 134 records of patients that have fallen from October 2016 to February 2018. Data was collected using a data extraction sheet and analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).Results: Intrinsic factors contributing to patient falls includedthe patient’s age, hypertension, co-morbidities and the use of benzodiazepines as a sedative. Extrinsic factors were the incorrect use of bed rails and the skill mix of the staff. In over half of the cases (n = 68; 50.7%), risk assessments were not performed according to the protocol. Only 5 (3.7%) patients sustained major injuries due to the falls. However, the risk of more severe falls increased 2.4 times with the lack of risk assessment.Conclusion: The lack of accurate and consistent patient fall risk assessments, use of benzodiazepines as a sedative and the staff skill mix were contributors to the fall rate in these hospitals.

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“…Many studies about falls agree that assessing their frequency and identifying risk factors helps to prevent and/or reduce them [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ]; thus, in a systematic review that included four meta-analyses on 19 studies on falls, it was shown that programs and interventions focused on hospitalized patients reduce the relative risk of falls by up to 30% [ 19 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of Nurses’ Intervention in the Prevention of Falls in Hospitalized Patients

Montejano-Lozoya

Miguel-Montoya

Gea-Caballero

et al. 2020

IJERPH

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Background: Clinical safety is a crucial component of healthcare quality, focused on identifying and avoiding the risks to which patients are exposed. Among the adverse events that occur in a hospital environment, falls have a large impact (1.9–10% of annual income in acute care hospitals); they can cause pain, damage, costs, and mistrust in the health system. Our objective was to assess the effect of an educational intervention aimed at hospital nurses (systematic assessment of the risk of falls) in reducing the incidence of falls. Methods: this was a quasi-experimental study based on a sample of 581 patients in a third level hospital (Comunitat Valenciana, Spain). An educational program was given to the intervention group (n = 303), and a control group was included for comparison (n = 278). In the intervention group, the nurses participated in a training activity on the systematized assessment of the risk of falls. Analysis was undertaken using the Bayesian logistic regression model. Results: a total of 581 patients were studied (50.6% male, 49.4% female), with an average age of 68.3 (DT = 9) years. The overall incidence of falls was 1.2% (0.3% in the intervention group and 2.2% in the control group). Most of the falls occurred in people ≥65 years old (85.7%). The intervention group had a lower probability of falling than the control group (OR: 0.127; IC95%: 0.013–0.821). Neither the length of hospital stay, nor the age of the participants, had any relevant effect. Conclusions: the systematic assessment of the risk of a patient falling during hospital processes is an effective intervention to reduce the incidence of falls.

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Associations between patient symptoms and falls in an acute care hospital: A cross‐sectional study

Abstract: Clinicians ought to pay particular attention to increased fall risk among patients reporting many symptoms and those experiencing distress from concentration difficulties, fatigue, sleep problems, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea.

Cited by 21 publications

References 25 publications

Falls in Parkinson's disease: the impact of disease progression, treatment, and motor complications

Falls in Parkinson's disease: the impact of disease progression, treatment, and motor complications

Factors influencing patient falls in a private hospital group in the Cape Metropole of the Western Cape

Impact of Nurses’ Intervention in the Prevention of Falls in Hospitalized Patients

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