The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths & Injuries (STEADI) toolkit is a national effort to prevent falls among older adults. Studies have been conducted on implementation of the STEADI, but no studies have investigated older adults’ adherence to or perceptions of fall prevention recommendations delineated within the STEADI algorithm. Semistructured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of older adults 6 months after attending a falls risk assessment. Seventy-nine percent accurately recalled their fall risk, 57% followed one or more recommendations, and 32% did not recall at least one recommendation correctly. The most common recommendation recalled and adhered to was exercise. No participants recalled or adhered to recommendations including medication review, taking time changing positions, vision check, podiatrist visit, or physical therapy. Thirty-two percent fell. Of these, 55.6% did not follow any recommendations. Interview transcripts were analyzed using comparative methodology following the tenets of thematic analysis. Three themes emerged: participating in fall prevention, barriers to following recommendations, and providers can encourage people to prevent falls. An unexpected facilitator to participation in fall prevention efforts emerged—older adults’ perception that they were positively influencing society by participating in research and working with students and the university. This finding provides an opportunity for providers of health education to address the growing public health issue of falls among older adults while also creating opportunities for students to engage in community service and interdisciplinary service learning.

Aim To explore gender differences in older adults’ perceptions about preventing falls. Background Falls are a major problem for older adults and health care systems and a challenge to the aging population. Consideration of older adults’ perceptions of fall prevention is needed to increase their engagement in evidence-based prevention strategies. Method A qualitative analysis of secondary data was performed. Results Three major themes emerged: We’ve Seen It, Women Are Caregivers, and Men Are Analyzing Risks and Modifying Behaviors. The men and women in this study shared information about falls and fall prevention in alignment with traditional role expectations. The women learned about falling through their roles as caregivers and prevented falls by controlling extrinsic risk factors indoors such as holding onto handrails on stairs or making home modifications. The men demonstrated an analytical approach to reducing risk such as employing improved safety measures during outdoors activities as a responsibility to maintain independence. Implications The different perceptions of men and women influence what they do to engage in fall prevention. Health care professionals need to consider gender differences and take an individualized approach that includes allowing older adults to share their experiences, acknowledging their successful fall prevention behaviors, and validating and addressing their concerns.

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Falls are the leading cause of fatal and non-fatal injuries among older adults. Self-management plans have been used in different contexts to promote healthy behaviors, but older adults’ perceptions of a falls prevention self-management plan template have not been investigated. Using mixed methods, we investigated older adults’ perceptions and recommendations of a falls prevention self-management plan template aligned with the Health Belief Model. Four focus groups (n = 27, average age 78 years) were conducted using semi-structured interview guides. Participants also ranked the written plan on paper with respect to each item by the level of importance, where item 1 was the most important, and 10 was the least important. Focus groups were transcribed and analyzed. Descriptive statistics were calculated for item rankings. Older adults felt that the plan would raise awareness and help them to engage in falls prevention behaviors. Participants recommended adding graphics and using red to highlight the risk of falling. Participants opined that ranking the items by level of importance was challenging because they felt all items were important. ‘What might happen to me if I fall’ was ranked as the most important item (average 2.6), while ‘How will I monitor progress’ was the least important (average = 6.6). Considering that older adults need support to engage in falls prevention, future research should investigate the impact of implementing an individually tailored falls prevention self-management plan on older adults’ engagement in falls prevention behaviors and outcomes of falls and injuries.

Nationally, approximately one third of older adults fall each year. Falls and resulting injury result in decreased mobility, functional impairment, loss of independence, and increased mortality. Utilization of evidence-based protocols by health care providers to identify older adults at risk of falling is limited, and rates of participation by older adults in prevention activities is low. Because of nursing's increasing role in caring for older adults, development of fall prevention education for nursing students would result in increased awareness of the need for fall prevention in community-dwelling older adults and increased access of older adults to falls risk assessment. There is a need to extend research to inform teaching and learning strategies for fall prevention. After pretesting, a convenience sample of 52 undergraduate nursing students and 22 graduate nursing students completed an online education program and performed a falls risk assessment on an older adult. After completing the clinical assignment, students completed a posttest and self-efficacy survey. Data were analyzed using multivariate statistical tests. Results revealed an increase in knowledge and student self-reporting of efficacy of fall risk assessment skills for the older adult population. This study suggests that nursing students acquired the necessary knowledge and self-efficacy for assessing fall risk of older adults through the combination of an online learning module and participating in actual fall risk assessment of an older adult.