A Retrospective, Matched Case-Control Study on the Risk Factors of Falls and Varying Severities of Fall-Related Injuries in Inpatients.

OBJECTIVE: This study was to investigate the factors that influence falls and the severity of fall-related injuries in inpatients.

METHODS: We adopted a retrospective, matched case-control design and conducted this study at a teaching hospital in Taiwan. Our study period ran from January 2016 to December 2019. We searched for inpatients with official fall records and obtained data from 823 patients, and then established a control group comprising 331 matching patients based on age, sex, length of hospital stay at time of fall incident, and ward type, thereby resulting in 1154 patients in all. A cumulative logistic regression model was applied to the data collected from medical records and fall incident reports to identify the factors that influence falls and the severity of fall-related injuries in inpatients.

RESULTS: The results indicated that the use of sedatives (B = 0.49, P < 0.001), impaired consciousness (B = 0.64, P < 0.001), normal weight versus obese (B = -0.59, P = 0.008), low hemoglobin levels (B = -0.08, P = 0.003), an unsteady gait versus a normal gait (B = 1.82, P < 0.001), and history of falling within the past year (B = 0.56, P < 0.001) were correlated with the falls and the severity of fall-related injuries.

CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that the use of sedatives, impaired consciousness, obesity, low hemoglobin levels, poor gait function, and history of falling within the past year are all independent factors that influence falls and the severity of fall-related injuries. This study can provide medical personnel with a reference for the identification of patients with a high risk of falling and implementation of fall prevention measures.