Nurses as Agents of Safety: Identifying unique contributors to falls in hospitalized Adult Hematology Patients: A Retrospective Study

Abstract

Falls continue to be a major safety concern in acute care settings and are the second cause of unintentional injury deaths globally [1].The World Health Organization defines a fall as an event that results in a person coming to a rest inadvertently on the ground or floor or other lower level. Prevention of a fall is a safety measure, which is significantly affected by nursing care according to the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI) [2].This retrospective review of one hundred medical records was conducted to assess if there are unique contributors to falls in hospitalized adult hematology patients. The study sample was drawn from the parent study that examined the impact of video-based educational intervention on the occurrence of falls among hematology patients hospitalized for the management of cancer treatment and complications. Patients with cancer are at an increased risk of sustaining a fall related injury due to impaired functional status, low blood counts, treatment related fatigue, frailty, and poor nutritional status [3,4]. Simple logistic regression between continuous variables and dependent variable, and cross-tabulation between categorical variables and the dependent variable was used to analyze study results.The study revealed that there was a significant relationship between fall incident and fall risk assessment scores on admission; X2 (1) = 6.153, p = .013, Cramer’s V = .256.