Date of Award
Summer 2021
Document Type
Final DNP Paper
Degree Name
Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) in Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner
Department
Nursing
Faculty Chair
Serena Gramling
Abstract
Background: Falls are one of the most common adverse events in the hospital. Falls can result in injury, increased hospital length of stays, increased costs and use of hospital resources, and death. The risk of falling is even higher for hospitalized patients due to unfamiliar environments, new medications and treatments, acute illness symptoms, surgery, bed rest, lines, tubes, and catheters.
Purpose: This quality improvement project aimed to increase awareness of the importance of fall prevention in the hospital setting and educate nursing staff on fall prevention to decrease patient falls.
Methods: This project utilized a quasi-experimental study design that includes education on multifactorial fall interventions and pre-and post-educational evaluation using a convenient sample of (n=23) registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and patient care assistants on the medical-surgical floor. A pre and post-test comparison and fall rate calculations were instruments used to collect and calculate data to measure the project’s outcomes.
Results: This project used a paired t-test to compare overall pre and post-test results related to knowledge gained from the educational intervention. The paired t-test looked at the pre-and post-education scores per participant. A statistically significant improvement in knowledge was found between the pre-and post-education scores of participants (t=2.7481, p=0.01174).
Conclusion: This quality improvement project aimed to educate nursing staff on fall prevention and injuries related to falls to reduce falls at the project facility. Since nurses play such a pivotal role in preventing patient falls, the literature supports educating nurses about fall prevention. The findings from this study indicate nurse education can increase knowledge of patient falls and fall prevention. Therefore, identifying risks can lead to decreased patient falls and injuries related to falls, resulting in an overall reduction in hospitalization costs.
Keywords: falls, fall prevention, fall protocols, fall risk
Recommended Citation
Medici, Crystal, "A Quality Improvement Project to Improve the Management of Patients at Risk for Falls" (2021). Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects. 27.
https://digitalcommons.jsu.edu/etds_nursing/27