IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jocnur/v20y2011i1-2p175-183.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Falls in older hospital inpatients and the effect of cognitive impairment: a secondary analysis of prevalence studies

Author

Listed:
  • Jürgen Härlein
  • Ruud JG Halfens
  • Theo Dassen
  • Nils A Lahmann

Abstract

Aims and objectives. The objective of this study was to compare fall rates in older hospital inpatients with and without cognitive impairment. Relationships between age, gender, mobility, cognitive impairment, care dependency, urinary incontinence and medical disciplines were investigated. Background. Falls are common in older people with cognitive impairment, but studies in the hospital setting are rare. Design. A secondary analysis of three nationwide prevalence studies in German hospitals from the years 2005, 2006 and 2007 was conducted. Method. Trained staff nurses used a standardised instrument to collect data about accidental falls within the last two weeks in their institutions and about other patient characteristics. Data from 9246 patients aged 65 years or older from 37 hospitals were analysed. Results. The fall rate for cognitively impaired patients was 12·9%, while only 4·2% of older persons without cognitive impairment experienced a fall. Comparison between medical disciplines showed great differences concerning fall risk for confused and non‐confused inpatients. In multivariate logistic regression analysis, the odds‐ratio association of cognitive impairment and falls was 2·1 (CI 1·7–2·7). Higher age (OR 1·5, CI 1·2–1·9), greater care dependency (OR 1·6, CI 1·1–2·1), reduced mobility (OR 2·6, CI 1·9–3·7) and being a patient on a geriatric ward (OR 1·8, CI 1·1–2·9) were also statistically significant predictors in this model. Conclusions. Cognitively impaired older people constitute a high‐risk group for accidental falls in hospitals. Relevance to clinical practice. Fall prevention strategies in the hospital setting should address cognitively impaired inpatients as an important high‐risk group.

Suggested Citation

  • Jürgen Härlein & Ruud JG Halfens & Theo Dassen & Nils A Lahmann, 2011. "Falls in older hospital inpatients and the effect of cognitive impairment: a secondary analysis of prevalence studies," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(1‐2), pages 175-183, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:jocnur:v:20:y:2011:i:1-2:p:175-183
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2702.2010.03460.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2702.2010.03460.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1365-2702.2010.03460.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gillian Stockwell‐Smith & Adeniyi Adeleye & Wendy Chaboyer & Marie Cooke & Maggie Phelan & Jo‐anne Todd & Laurie Grealish, 2020. "Interventions to prevent in‐hospital falls in older people with cognitive impairment for further research: A mixed studies review," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(17-18), pages 3445-3460, September.
    2. Laurie Grealish & Wendy Chaboyer & Jacob Darch & Belinda Real & Maggie Phelan & Dawn Soltau & Matthew Lunn & Susan Brandis & Jo‐anne Todd & Marie Cooke, 2019. "Caring for the older person with cognitive impairment in hospital: Qualitative analysis of nursing personnel reflections on fall events," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(7-8), pages 1346-1353, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:jocnur:v:20:y:2011:i:1-2:p:175-183. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1365-2702 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.