Patient-Centered Fall Prevention: Cultivating Caring Attitudes

Meaghan Lyn Carr

Robert Morris University
Background

Review of the Literature

Patient falls are preventable and have serious

consequences for patient safety
27-month study: 345,800 falls in 1263 hospitals
Hospitals continue to struggle with reducing risk of
patient falls even with use of multiple interventions
Multiple strategies may have no more of an effect on
reducing falls than using a single strategy
A caring attitude and better patient-centered care may
play a major role in fall prevention

Active involvement of management and

floor-staff instrumental in reducing fall rates
Staff feeling directly involved in
implementation process led to caring
attitudes about interventions and outcomes
Nurses had better perception of using both
evidence-based fall prevention techniques
and implementation processes
Factors of transforming fall prevention
practices: identifying specific fall risks,
using multiple patient-centered techniques,
implementation strategies
Nurses increased knowledge and education
did not guarantee effective fall prevention
programs
Cultivating and sustaining caring attitudes
often overlooked as fall prevention strategy

PICOT Question
For patients in the acute care setting, does the use of
patient-centered strategies reduce the risk of falls?

Methods
CINAHL Complete was used to search for the
terms fall prevention, patient safety,
nursing, nursing care, implementation,
and patient-centered care. Fourteen articles
met the search criteria. Reading abstracts and
hand searching narrowed the search for articles
that discussed patient-specific interventions,
staff involvement in implementation of
interventions, and caring attitudes of the health
care team. Five articles were reviewed.

Recommendations

Nurses
Identify patient-specific fall risks
Use multiple patient-centered fall
prevention techniques
Become actively involved in patientcentered care
Become directly involved in the
implementation of interventions
Motivate colleagues to have caring
attitudes about fall prevention

Management
Include floor-staff in patient-specific fall
prevention strategy development
Be actively involved in implementation
of patient-centered care
Use Translating Research Into Practice
(TRIP) model when implementing fall
prevention programs
Further research
Nurses caring attitudes and involvement
as a strategy itself
Implementation strategies to cultivate
and sustain caring attitudes about fall
prevention