Reliability and Validity of a Pediatric Fall Risk Assessment Scale for Hospitalized Patients in Taiwan.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: A valid fall risk assessment scale could increase the efficacy of fall prevention programs. Most fall scales were developed for adults, and it is very difficult to predict and prevent falls in pediatric inpatients. This study aimed to investigate the reliability and validity of a pediatric fall assessment scale (PFAS). METHODS: This study was conducted as a cohort study in Taichung City, Taiwan. We analyzed the scale for internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was generated to show sensitivity and specificity for predicting falls. RESULTS: The results indicated that test-retest reliability was 0.89 (P = .000). The area under the ROC curve was 0.797. For the ROC curves for the pediatric fall risk assessment scale, with 11.5 points being the minimum score for a high risk of fall, sensitivity was 71.8%, specificity 74.6%, and the 95% CI was 0.746-0.848. CONCLUSION: The results of the data analysis showed that the PFAS is an appropriate scale for assessing the fall risk of hospitalized pediatric patients in Taiwan and potentially in other nations.

Improvements in patient safety culture: a national Taiwanese survey, 2009-16.

OBJECTIVE: To assess national trends in patient safety culture in Taiwan. DESIGN: A safety attitudes questionnaire (SAQ) was distributed to 144 hospitals from 2009 to 2016 (n = 392 341). SETTING: Taiwan's medical centers, regional hospitals and community hospitals. PARTICIPANTS: Hospital staff in Taiwan. INTERVENTIONS: None. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: 5-point Likert scale to assess changes in patient safety culture dimensions (teamwork, safety climate, job satisfaction, stress recognition, management and working conditions) converted to positive response rate (percentage of respondents who answered slightly agree or strongly agree on Likert scale). RESULTS: Dimensions for patient safety culture significantly increased in Taiwan over a period of 8 years, with an all-composite improvement in positive response rate of 4.6% (P < 0.001). Regional hospitals and community hospitals registered an all-composite improvement of 6.7 and 7.0%, respectively, while medical centers improved by 4.0%. Improvements for regional and community hospitals primarily occurred in teamwork (regional hospitals, 10.4% [95% confidence interval [CI], 10.2-10.6]; community hospitals, 8.5% [95% CI, 8.0-9.0]) and safety climate (regional hospitals, 11.1% [95% [CI], 10.9-11.4]; community hospitals, 11.3% [95% CI, 10.7-11.8]) (P < 0.001, all differences). Compared with nurses (5.1%) and pharmaceutical staff (10.6%), physicians improved the least (2.0%). Improvements for nurses and pharmacists were driven by increases in perceptions of teamwork (nurses, 9.8% [95% CI, 9.7-10.0]; pharmaceutical staff, 14.2% [95% CI, 13.4-14.9]) and safety climate (nurses, 9.0% [95% CI, 8.8-9.1]; pharmaceutical staff, 16.4% [95% CI, 15.7-17.2]) (P < 0.001, all differences). At study end, medical centers (55.1%) had greater all-composite measurements of safety culture than regional hospitals (52.4%) and community hospitals (52.2%) while physicians (63.7%) maintained greater measurements of safety culture than nurses (52.1%) and pharmaceutical staff (56.6%). CONCLUSION: These results suggest patient safety culture improved in Taiwan from 2009 to 2016.