Stoma surgery negatively affects patients' physical, psychological, social, and sexual health. Postoperative education programs in clinical settings mostly focus on physical health and underemphasize psychological issues. More pre- and postoperative education programs are needed to help patients cope with stoma stressors.
An exploratory descriptive study was conducted to explore the perspectives of patients who had fallen in the hospital; 100 patients were interviewed. An inductive content analysis approach was adopted. Six themes emerged: Apathetic toward falls, self-blame behavior, reluctance to impose on busy nurses, negative feelings toward nurses, overestimating own ability, and poor retention of information. Patients often downplayed the risks of falls and were reluctant to call for help.
Background
Many older people (care recipients) experience long-term psychological distress due to the fear of falling again. Falls can affect carers due to concerns about their care recipients falling. Understanding carers’ fall concern is crucial to determine if carers are coping with the provision of care or have adequate knowledge and support in preventing their care recipients from falling at home.
Methods
A descriptive qualitative study was conducted to explore carers’ concern about their care recipients being at risk of falling and their management of fall risk at home. Twenty-two carers were recruited from two research registers and a large tertiary hospital in a regional centre of Australia. Carers were interviewed face-to-face, or by telephone using a semi-structured interview guide about their fall concern. The data was analysed using an inductive content analysis method.
Results
Eight major themes emerged from the interviews. Four themes described key factors influencing carers’ fall concern which include: 1) carers’ perception of fall and fall risk, 2) care recipients’ behaviour and attitude towards fall risk, 3) care recipients’ health and function, and 4) care recipients’ living environment. Another four themes described the management of care recipients’ fall risk which include: 5) fall prevention strategies used, 6) risk of preventing falls, 7) support from family and friends, and 8) support from healthcare professionals.
Conclusions
The findings from this qualitative study provide an insight into the carers’ awareness of fall risk, knowledge, and the availability of support in preventing their care recipients from falling at home. Healthcare professionals are encouraged to include carers and address their fall concern to improve fall prevention programmes for care recipients at risk of falling at home.
Falls, the leading cause of injury and death among older people, can have a significant psychosocial impact on carers.Carers play a crucial role in caring for older persons at home and in fall prevention. This review, which included 15 studies, aimed to identify carers' concern about older people falling and its impact. We identified that most carers had concerns about repeated falls in older people, unknown consequences of falls and care recipients' non-adherence to fall prevention advice. These concerns, in turn, affect carers' physical and psychological health, lifestyle, caregiving burden and use of fall prevention strategies. This paper highlights the importance of recognising carers' fall concern so as to identify carers' needs and awareness of fall prevention in older people living at home. Greater insight into carers' fall concern could facilitate the implementation of new strategies to manage older people's fall risk as well as improve carers' well-being.
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