The nursing staff's opinion of falls among older persons with dementia. A cross-sectional studyShow others and affiliations
2011 (English)In: BMC Nursing, E-ISSN 1472-6955, Vol. 10, no 13
Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
The aim of this study was to describe the nursing staff's opinion of caring for older persons with dementia with the focus on causes of falls, fall-preventing interventions, routines of documentation and report and the nursing staff's experiences and reactions when fall incidents occur. A further aim was to compare these areas between registered nurses (RNs) and enrolled nurses (ENs) and staff with ≤5 and >5 years of employment in the care units in question.
Background
Falls are common among older people and persons with dementia constitute an additional risk group.
Methods
The study had a cross-sectional design and included nursing staff (n = 63, response rate 66%) working in four special care units for older persons with dementia. Data collection was conducted with a questionnaire consisting of 64 questions.
Results
The respondents reported that the individuals' mental and physical impairment constitute the most frequent causes of falls. The findings also revealed a lack of, or uncertainty about, routines of documentation and reporting fall-risk and fall-preventing interventions. Respondents who had been employed in the care units more than five years reported to a higher degree that colours and material on floors caused falls. RNs considered the residents' autonomy and freedom of movement as a cause of falls to a significantly higher degree than ENs. RNs also reported a significantly longer time than ENs before fall incidents were discovered, and they used conversation and closeness as fall-preventing interventions to a significantly higher degree than ENs.
Conclusions
Individual factors were the most common causes to falls according to the nursing staff. RNs used closeness and dialog as interventions to a significantly higher degree to prevent falls than ENs. Caring of for older people with dementia consisted of a comprehensive on-going assessment by the nursing staff to balance the residents' autonomy-versus-control to minimise fall-risk. This ethical dilemma should initiate development of feasible routines of systematic risk-assessment, report and documentation.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
London, UK: BioMed Central, 2011. Vol. 10, no 13
Keywords [en]
dementia, falls, nursing home, nursing care, older person
National Category
Medical and Health Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-69628DOI: 10.1186/1472-6955-10-13OAI: oai:DiVA.org:liu-69628DiVA, id: diva2:430200
2011-07-072011-07-072024-07-04Bibliographically approved