Aging & Society: Eighth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

The concept of unpreventable falls is controversial; can falls in hospitals be reduced to zero for patients with high risk of falling? We identified falls considered by clinical nurses to be unpreventable. Twenty-six clinical registered nurses in three general hospitals who had at least five years of nursing experience were included. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Categories were extracted based on the context. Nurses’ average number of years (standard deviation) of experience was 21.7 (8.6), and the average number of falls experienced was 12.4 (10.3). Categories of unpreventable falls were “falls caused by high risk fallers with lack of information related to individual fall risks,” “falls caused by older patients who were not diagnosed but who had decreased cognition,” “falls caused by inactive patients who were not identified as high risk fallers,” “falls during the process of changing abilities of activities of daily livings (ADL),” and “falls caused by patients whose health conditions suddenly and unclearly changed.” Nurses stated that “unpreventable falls occur when we cannot predict who falls and how they fall,” such as in emergency admission and during transitions of ADL changes. It is considered that older patients with dementia and post-stroke patients with disabilities can be involved in the unpreventable falls. It is well-known that preventing seemingly unpreventable falls is extremely difficult. Such falls can be reduced by use of sensor monitoring if nurses cannot identify who falls and how they will fall.