Nursing Education to Prevent Resident Falls in Long-Term Care

• Main Author: Aguwa, Henrietta
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: ScholarWorks 2019
• Subjects: Fall prevention in nursing homes; Fall-prevention in older adults; Fall prevention using the AMDA's clinical practice guidelines; Fall prevention using the STEADI toolkit; Fall risk factors; Multifactorial fall-prevention; Education; Nursing
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/7455; https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8727&context=dissertations

Residents in nursing facilities are more prone to falls than those living in the community. Injuries resulting from falls impact residents, their families, and healthcare costs. The gap in nursing practice was the lack of a comprehensive fall-prevention program in a long-term care facility that had experienced high fall rates among residents. This project addressed whether an educational program using the American Medical Directors Association's clinical practice guideline and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's STEADI (Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths, & Injuries) toolkit for fall- prevention improved the self-efficacy of direct-care staff in preventing falls among residents in a long-term care facility. The practice-focused question focused on whether education on the use of an integrated multifactorial fall-prevention guideline would increase confidence of long-term care staff in reducing falls in long-term care residents. The evaluation used the 11-item Self-Efficacy for Preventing Falls-Nurse scale for 5 licensed nursing staff and the 8-item Self-Efficacy for Preventing Falls-Assistant scale for 21 nursing assistants. The positive change in self-efficacy scores of nurses and nursing assistants after the education program was greatest for face-to-face team communication regarding fall risk and individual resident prevention plans. The use of best-practice guidelines that improve fall risk-assessment and use of fall precautions to decrease the number of falls and falls with injury has the potential to bring about positive social change by improving the nursing care of nursing home residents, resulting in improved resident safety and quality of life.