The Rose-Colored Glasses of Geriatric Fall Patients: Inconsistencies Between Knowledge of Risk Factors for and Actual Causes of Falls
Authors
Collins, Courtney E.Chandra, Arnav
Nguyen, Bryan
Schultz, Kurt
Mathew, Pawan
Chen, Tiffany
Renshaw, Savannah
Rose, Karen M.
Santry, Heena P.
Document Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2020-10-23Keywords
Clinical geriatricseducation
falls
prevention
Geriatrics
Gerontology
Health Psychology
Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms
Psychiatry and Psychology
Public Health Education and Promotion
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Background: Falls are the leading cause of fatal injury, and most common cause of non-fatal trauma, among older adults. We sought to elicit older patient's perspectives on fall risks for the general population as well as contributions to any personal falls to identify opportunities to improve fall education. Methods: Ten patients with a history of falls from inpatient trauma and outpatient geriatric services were interviewed. Transcripts were analyzed independently by five individuals using triangulation and constant comparison (NVivo11, QSR International) to compare fall risks to fall causes. Results: All patients reported that either they (9/10 participants) or someone they knew (8/10) had fallen. Despite this, only two personally worried about falling. Patient perceptions of fall risks fell into seven major themes: physiologic decline (8/10); underestimating limitations (7/10); environmental hazards (7/10), lack of awareness/rushing (4/10), misuse/lack of walking aids (3/10); positional transitions (2/10), and improper footwear (1/10). In contrast, the most commonly reported causes of personal falls were lack of awareness/rushing (7/10), environmental hazards (3/10), misuse/lack of walking aids (2/10), improper footwear (2/10), physiologic decline (2/10), underestimating limitations (1/10) and positional transitions (1/10). In general tended to attribute their own falls to their surroundings and were less likely to attribute physical or psychological limitations. Conclusion: Despite participants identifying falls as a serious problem, they were unlikely to worry about falling themselves. Participants were able to identify common fall risks. However, when speaking about personal experience, they were more likely to blame environmental hazards or rushing, and minimized the role of physiologic decline and personal limitations.Source
Collins CE, Chandra A, Nguyen B, Schultz K, Mathew P, Chen T, Renshaw S, Rose KM, Santry HP. The Rose-Colored Glasses of Geriatric Fall Patients: Inconsistencies Between Knowledge of Risk Factors for and Actual Causes of Falls. Gerontol Geriatr Med. 2020 Oct 23;6:2333721420967884. doi: 10.1177/2333721420967884. PMID: 33173805; PMCID: PMC7588762. Link to article on publisher's site
DOI
10.1177/2333721420967884Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/41623PubMed ID
33173805Related Resources
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Copyright © 2020 The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).Distribution License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1177/2333721420967884
Scopus Count
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Copyright © 2020 The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).