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KMID : 0948820210270040061
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Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture Journal
2021 Volume.27 No. 4 p.61 ~ p.70
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The Effect of Patient-related and Environment-related Characteristics on the Risk of Falling in Inpatient Care Unit - A Case-Control Study to identify Inpatient Fall Risk Factors
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Choi Young-Seon
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Abstract
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Purpose: The study aims at identifying patient-related and environmental factors associated with an increased risk of falling and, therefore, both caregivers and designers can be aware of fall risk factors and can contribute to prevent inpatient falls in their own areas of expertise.
Methods: A case-control study has been conducted, utilizing patient data and physical environmental data in the unit of General Medicine in the United States. The case-control study investigated data about patients who had suffered falls as well as patients with similar characteristics (e.g., age, gender, and diagnosis) who did not suffer falls.
Results: The study identified both patient-related and physical environmental factors associated with inpatient falls. Morse fall risk score, patient visibility, and patient accessibilityB were identified as significant predictors to inpatient falls, when controlling for other significant variables.
Implications: The findings of the study can provide implications to both caregivers and healthcare and hospital environment designers. Caregivers should give special attention to patients with high Morse Fall Risk Scores to prevent inpatient falls. Designers also need to examine and to fine-tune the unit layout of inpatient care units to maximize each patient room’s patient visibility from the rest of the unit and patient accessibilityB from working areas of nurses.
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KEYWORD
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Patient falls, Unit Design, Patient-related Characteristics, Environment-related Characteristics, Case-Control Study
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