Risk factors of falls among inpatients with cancer

Abstract

The predictive factors for falls reflect the nature of the patient's environment, culture and disease. Falls have a negative effect on patient safety and can significantly influence quality of life. Policies for patient safety need more specialized and customized approaches.

Fall Predictors in Hospitalized Patients Living with Cancer: A Case-Control Study

“…Besides, patients experiencing fatigue likely have asthenia of lower limbs which may result in gait imbalance. These fall predictors were frequently found in most if not all of previous studies [3,6,7,[11][12][13][25][26][27][28].…”

“…In line with previous studies, we found for the most of the candidate fall predictors higher prevalences in the cases group as compared to controls. This was applies to the need for walking aid, having a neurologic disease, impaired vision/hearing, delirium, anxiety/depression, gate imbalance disorders, fatigue, hyposthenia of lower limbs, use of ambulatory devices, diuretics, hypnotics and opioids [3,[8][9][10][11]13]. Conversely, contrast with previous studies, we found no statistically signi cant differences in prevalences of having comorbidities such as cardiovascular, endocrine and respiratory diseases, treatment induced neuropathy, the presence of plegies, and the use of antihypertensive, hypoglicemic agents and having received blood products transfusions in the last 24 hours.…”

“…Our study was aimed at identifying fall predictors in hospitalized patients with cancer and developing an assessment tool for screening patients at risk for fall at admission to the hospital. Even though several studies conducted in different countries have investigated the issue before, ours is the rst study conducted in an Italian population in the cancer setting [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Risk for fall varies according to type and speci city of oncology wards [8].…”

“…The risk factors investigated in this study were selected through a literature review and consisted of tumor site, comorbidities, sensory-neurologic de cits, mood and cognitive disorders (i.e., depression and delirium), previous fall history, treatment-induced fatigue, motor disorders requiring mobility assistance, medications (opioids, hypnotics, hypoglycemic agents. antihypertensives, diuretics), blood product use in the previous 24 hours, medical devices limiting ambulation, ambulatory aid use (i.e., crutches, cane or walker) [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”

“…Several studies on the topic have previously been conducted on hospitalized patients living with cancer [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. However, studies evaluating fall risk tools in this clinical setting are few and the characteristics of study centers are not described in the published works.…”