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Staff’s insights into fall prevention solutions in long-term care facilities: a cross-sectional study
BACKGROUND: Falls are one of the most common and serious health issues in long-term care facilities (LTCFs), impacting not just residents, but staff and the healthcare system. This study aimed to explore LTCF staff’s current practices around falls prevention, and their suggested solutions for better...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10644547/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37957577 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-023-04435-7 |
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author | Albasha, Neah Curtin, Catriona McCullagh, Ruth Cornally, Nicola Timmons, Suzanne |
author_facet | Albasha, Neah Curtin, Catriona McCullagh, Ruth Cornally, Nicola Timmons, Suzanne |
author_sort | Albasha, Neah |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Falls are one of the most common and serious health issues in long-term care facilities (LTCFs), impacting not just residents, but staff and the healthcare system. This study aimed to explore LTCF staff’s current practices around falls prevention, and their suggested solutions for better falls prevention. METHODS: In the southwest of Ireland, a descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in 13 LTCF sites, across a range of provider types and facility sizes. A survey, measuring staff knowledge, skills and attitudes, was distributed in physical and online formats. Staff suggestions for prioritising fall and fall-related injury prevention activities, and current staff practices regarding fall incidents were also sought. Content analysis was used to analyse responses, mapping categories and subcategories to the refined theoretical domains framework (TDF) and to an existing fall prevention guideline. RESULTS: There were 155 respondents (15% response rate), from staff of the LTCFs. Environmental reviews and modifications (aligned to the TDF environmental context and resource domain) were the most common suggestions for preventing both falls and fall-related injuries. Other common suggestions for preventing falls were staff education, monitoring of residents, and using alarm/calling systems, while few staff members, across all roles, reported assessing residents, exercises, reviewing medications, and vitamin D supplements. For preventing fall-related injuries, suggestions included protective equipment, hip protectors and alarm/calling systems. Staff used a standardised approach when responding to a fall incident, with intensive and holistic post-fall control measures. HCAs focussed on transferring residents safely, while nurses of all grades focused more on post-fall assessment. Respondents believed that staff education, communication, increasing staffing levels and enhancing specialist care could support their practice. CONCLUSION: Noting the low response rate, the results suggest an awareness gap regarding some evidence-based, resident-focussed falls prevention solutions, such as pro-active fall-risk assessment, exercise, medication review, and Vitamin D supplements. These aspects should be included in future fall prevention education programmes in LTCFs. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12877-023-04435-7. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10644547 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-106445472023-11-13 Staff’s insights into fall prevention solutions in long-term care facilities: a cross-sectional study Albasha, Neah Curtin, Catriona McCullagh, Ruth Cornally, Nicola Timmons, Suzanne BMC Geriatr Research BACKGROUND: Falls are one of the most common and serious health issues in long-term care facilities (LTCFs), impacting not just residents, but staff and the healthcare system. This study aimed to explore LTCF staff’s current practices around falls prevention, and their suggested solutions for better falls prevention. METHODS: In the southwest of Ireland, a descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in 13 LTCF sites, across a range of provider types and facility sizes. A survey, measuring staff knowledge, skills and attitudes, was distributed in physical and online formats. Staff suggestions for prioritising fall and fall-related injury prevention activities, and current staff practices regarding fall incidents were also sought. Content analysis was used to analyse responses, mapping categories and subcategories to the refined theoretical domains framework (TDF) and to an existing fall prevention guideline. RESULTS: There were 155 respondents (15% response rate), from staff of the LTCFs. Environmental reviews and modifications (aligned to the TDF environmental context and resource domain) were the most common suggestions for preventing both falls and fall-related injuries. Other common suggestions for preventing falls were staff education, monitoring of residents, and using alarm/calling systems, while few staff members, across all roles, reported assessing residents, exercises, reviewing medications, and vitamin D supplements. For preventing fall-related injuries, suggestions included protective equipment, hip protectors and alarm/calling systems. Staff used a standardised approach when responding to a fall incident, with intensive and holistic post-fall control measures. HCAs focussed on transferring residents safely, while nurses of all grades focused more on post-fall assessment. Respondents believed that staff education, communication, increasing staffing levels and enhancing specialist care could support their practice. CONCLUSION: Noting the low response rate, the results suggest an awareness gap regarding some evidence-based, resident-focussed falls prevention solutions, such as pro-active fall-risk assessment, exercise, medication review, and Vitamin D supplements. These aspects should be included in future fall prevention education programmes in LTCFs. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12877-023-04435-7. BioMed Central 2023-11-13 /pmc/articles/PMC10644547/ /pubmed/37957577 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-023-04435-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Albasha, Neah Curtin, Catriona McCullagh, Ruth Cornally, Nicola Timmons, Suzanne Staff’s insights into fall prevention solutions in long-term care facilities: a cross-sectional study |
title | Staff’s insights into fall prevention solutions in long-term care facilities: a cross-sectional study |
title_full | Staff’s insights into fall prevention solutions in long-term care facilities: a cross-sectional study |
title_fullStr | Staff’s insights into fall prevention solutions in long-term care facilities: a cross-sectional study |
title_full_unstemmed | Staff’s insights into fall prevention solutions in long-term care facilities: a cross-sectional study |
title_short | Staff’s insights into fall prevention solutions in long-term care facilities: a cross-sectional study |
title_sort | staff’s insights into fall prevention solutions in long-term care facilities: a cross-sectional study |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10644547/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37957577 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-023-04435-7 |
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