Clinical Practice Guideline for Assessment and Prevention of Falls in Adult People

Abstract

Falls are one of the most frequent health events in medical institutions, however, they can be predicted and prevented. The Quality Improvement Nurse Society clinical practice guideline Steering Committee developed the Clinical Practice Guideline for the assessment and prevention of falls in adult people. The purpose of this study was to assess the risk factors for falls in adults aged 19 years and older, to present an evidence for preventing falls, formulate a recommendations, and indicators for applying the recommendations. Methods: This clinical practice guideline was developed using a 23-step adaptation method according to the Handbook for clinical practice guideline developer (version 1.0) by National Evidence-based Healthcare Collaborating Agency. Evidence levels and recommendation ratings were established in accordance to SIGN 2011 (The Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network). Results: The final 15 recommendations from four domains were derived from experts' advice; 1) assessment of risk factor for falls in adult 2) preventing falls and reducing the risks of falls or falls-related injury 3) management and reassessment after a person falls 4) leadership and culture. Conclusion: This clinical practice guideline can be used as a basis for evaluation and prevention of fall risk factors for adults, to formulate recommendations for fall risk assessment and fall prevention, and to present monitoring indicators for applying the recommendations.

A Clinical Data Warehouse Analysis of Risk Factors for Inpatient Falls in a Tertiary Hospital: A Case-Control Study

“…In a study by Kim et al, 22 patients with dizziness reported a higher risk of falls at 6.205 times. Fall occurrence was also higher in this study with the presence of hypotension, low red blood cell count, and low hemoglobin level 23 …”

“…Fall occurrence was also higher in this study with the presence of hypotension, low red blood cell count, and low hemoglobin level. 23 Our study attempted to extract fall risk factors using patients' data stored in electronic medical records. Although using large-scale data of inpatients in the data collection process are advantageous, there is a limit to the comprehensive extraction of drugs related to the risk factors for falls and age because the fall group was selected via matching by the medical department, age, and sex.…”