101 Younger and Older Inpatient Fallers: What’s the Difference?

• Published in: Age and ageing Vol. 48; no. Supplement_4; pp. iv18 - iv27
• Main Authors: Pok, Wen Kin Alan, Chong, Gar Mit
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Oxford University Press 20-12-2019; Oxford Publishing Limited (England)
• Subjects: Age differences; Age groups; Chi-square test; Critical incidents; Falls; Hospitals; Injuries; Inpatient care; Intervention; Males; Nursing; Nursing care; Older people; Patients; Physiotherapy; Prevention programs; Teams; Time use; Walking; medical; falls; hospital; young; inpatient
• ISSN: 0002-0729; 1468-2834
• DOI: 10.1093/ageing/afz164.101

Abstract
Background
Falls are in important adverse event occurring in patients admitted to hospital, with potentially devastating consequences. An effective prevention and intervention programme may be devised by looking at the characteristics of falls in an institution.
Objective
To identify the differences between falls in older and younger patients in the medical wards of a tertiary hospital.
Methods
This is a retrospective cross-sectional study of data collected from the hospital Incidence Reporting system and Falls Intervention Team, looking at patients who had fallen in the Hospital Kuala Lumpur Medical Wards from January 2015 until December 2019. Parameters were codified as: patient age [young (≤50), pre-old (51-60), old (>60)], sex, mental status pre-fall (alert, confused, drowsy), nursing shift where the fall occurred (morning, afternoon, night), time of week (weekday, weekend), location of fall (toilet, bedside, walkway, others), activity pre-fall (toileting, transferring, physiotherapy, sitting, walking, others) and injury sustained (major, minor, none). Data analysis was performed using the Chi-square test with SPSS v22.
Results
There were 457 inpatient fallers during the study period. Most of the fallers were old (57.3%), whilst 18.3% were pre-old and 24.6% were young. 62.8% fallers were male, and there were significantly more male fallers at all age groups (p 0.028). There was no significant difference between the age groups with regards to nursing shift (p 0.319), time of week (p 0.461), site (p 0.216), activity (p 0.457), mental status (p 0.479) nor injury (p 0.632).
Conclusion
Most fallers were old and male, but there was no significant difference between the circumstances and characteristics of falls between older and younger inpatients. This suggests that falls prevention and intervention measures may be applied generally to all age groups.
References
Cameron ID et al. Interventions for preventing falls in older people in nursing care facilities and hospitals. Cochrane Database 2010.