Nursing Intervention to Prevent Falls

Nursing Intervention to Prevent Falls
Name
Institution
INTRODUCTION
Falls in the elderly are a common occurrence in various healthcare institutions. Falls can be defined as the patient's unplanned descent to the ground with or without injury or death and regularly affect patient care in hospitals worldwide ( Bouldin, 2013).
 Many factors may cause falls, some being medical conditions, medications, and safety hazards. Falls affect patients, resulting in permanent or temporary harm or even death to the patient. The nursing staff faces the challenging task of keeping their population safe from falls and injuries related to falls. Patients within the long-term care environment are usually age 65 years and older taking multiple medications and experiencing a decline in functionality. The World Health Organization reported that nearly 30% of adults experience injuries from falls and are at a higher risk for mortality-related injuries. According to Neily, Essen, and Quigley, 3% to 20% of inpatients fall at least once during their hospital period (Neily, Quigley & Essen, 2015).  30% to 51% of patients in acute and rehabilitation facilities experience injurious falls. Seventy-nine percent of falls take place in patients' rooms (Tzeng & Ying, 2008). Through having an interdisciplinary care team and implementing specific nursing actions, will reduce falls since the patient's needs will be meet proactively. The picot question is a clinical question that facilitates the search for an answer. In the current EBP project, the pivot question is; In an adult inpatient hospital setting over the age of 65 years (P), does the use of hourly rounding (I), compared to video monitoring of the patient (C), prevent patient falls (O), with the period of six months (T).
EVIDENCE SEARCH STRATEGY
A systematic review of nursing and health-related literature from 2015-2020 was conducted. In the first research database, keywords used in search of literature include; prevention of falls, elderly, falls, hospitalized patients, video monitoring, and pain. The search phrases include; hourly rounding, falls prevention, hospitalized patients, and video monitoring. In the second research database, keywords used include; patients positioning, fall prevention, prompted voiding, positioning; the search phrases used: patient positioning, fall prevention. The assessed literature comprised of English language, peer-reviewed journals, magazines, and research articles.
EVIDENCE EVALUATION
A review of articles was performed, resulting in two retained. The study exhibited a design variation to include; sample and setting, major variables, data collection methods, statistical analysis, findings and results, application of findings and results to practice, discussion, and limitation of the study. The remaining items were reviewed further for their level of evidence and hierarchy. All matched articles were organized based on prevention of falls in the elderly, prevention of falls and pain, fall prevention or positioning, fall prevention and positioning and prompted voiding, video monitoring, and fall prevention. This knowledge assisted in answering the picot question," in an adult inpatient hospital, does the use of hourly rounds compare to vid...