The nursing staff's opinion of falls among older persons with dementia. a cross-sectional study.
BMC Nurs
; 10: 13, 2011 Jun 20.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-21689441
ABSTRACT
UNLABELLED 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.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Type of study:
Observational_studies
/
Prevalence_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Language:
En
Journal:
BMC Nurs
Year:
2011
Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Norway