Risk for falls: relevance of nursing outcomes for hospitalized adult patients

• Grant number: 12/20694-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: December 01, 2012
• End date: November 30, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Nursing - Medical-Surgical Nursing
• Principal Investigator: Diná de Almeida Lopes Monteiro da Cruz
• Grantee: Julia Gomes Oliveira Braga
• Host Institution: Escola de Enfermagem (EE). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Increasingly, the quality of care and patient safety have been researched focuses. The knowledge development on this topic is needed to reduce errors, risks, and consequential damages to the patient. Falls in hospitalized patients can cause serious consequences. Therefore, the appropriate management of patients at risk of falls is important for their safety. The selection of effective interventions depends on the establishment of desirable outcomes, possible to achieve, and context-specific. This project is a study on outcomes of nursing interventions to control the risk of falls in hospitalized adult patients. The objectives of this study are to estimate the importance of the results suggested for risk for falls in the care of hospitalized adult patients and to estimate the importance of indicators to assess the outcomes relevant in this context. This cross-sectional and descriptive study will be held at an academic, medium-sized hospital, in São Paulo, Brazil. Data will be collected from 141 nurses caring for hospitalized adult patients in medical and surgical wards. We identified 45 outcomes of the Nursing Outcomes Classification (Center for Nursing Classification and Clinical Effectiveness, University of Iowa) potentially applicable to adult patients with risk for falls. Data will be collected through electronic forms, presented in two phases. Data on sample characteristics and nurses' opinions about the level of relevance of 45 outcomes for patients with risk for falls will be collected in the first phase. In the second one, nurses will assess: 1) the level of relevance of the indicators of the outcomes identified as most relevant on the first phase, and 2) the contribution of nursing to patient progress in these indicators. For this purpose, it will be used a Likert-type scale of five points. Data will be analyzed by descriptive statistics. (AU)