Assignment: Search Strategy for Fall Prevention

Assignment: Search Strategy for Fall Prevention

Assignment: Search Strategy for Fall Prevention

            Evidence-based practice interventions are important in nursing for the realization of optimum care outcomes. Nurses utilize these interventions to address issues that affect their patients. Nurses and other healthcare providers should possess the competencies needed to translate evidence-based data into practice (Najafpour et al., 2019). Therefore, this paper examines a clinical problem and proposed intervention to address it.

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Problem Description

            The focus of my group is on fall prevention. Falls are the major health problems affecting a significant proportion of the older populations. Statistics show that falls are among the leading cause of deaths and injuries in people aged 65 years and above. The percentage of falls in elderly adults aged 65-74 years is 25%, rising to 29% in those aged between 75 and 84 years. The rates rise further to 39% in adults aged above 85 years old (Sun et al., 2021). Organizational, patient, and provider factors have been shown to cause falls. Organizational factors include issues such as staff shortage and the lack of fall prevention programs and policies in place. Patient factors refer to issues such as age, confusion, medications, and a history of falls. Provider factors include workload, burnout, and distractions (Najafpour et al., 2019). Nurses and other healthcare providers have crucial responsibilities to play in fall prevention. Examples include patient assessment for risks of falls at first point of contact and the initiation of fall prevention strategies. In addition, nurses and other healthcare providers undertake continuous patient assessment to revise the care plans to address falls as needed (King et al., 2018).

Problem Significance

            Falls have adverse health outcomes on the affected populations. Accordingly, they increase the risk of injuries and mortalities among hospitalized patients. Falls also cause fractures, which may result in premature disability and inability to engage in activities of daily living. Falls also have immense financial burden to the patients, their significant others, and hospitals (Wong et al., 2020). The financial burden arises from the increased need for complex care for managing complications of falls. Falls also cause prolonged, unintended hospital stays for the patients, leading to high costs of healthcare (Sun et al., 2021). Falls also affect the mental health and wellbeing of the patients. For example, patients with a history of a fall have intense fear of a subsequent fall, leading to anxiety attacks. A history of a fall also acts a crucial determinant of the patient’s risk of falls in the future. Falls also cause a decline in one’s quality of life. In this case, falls affect one’s ability to engage optimally in their social, family, or occupational roles (Zhao et al., 2019). Therefore, effective interventions should be adopted to minimize and prevent falls among hospitalized patients.

PICOT Question

            Evidence-based interventions can be adopted to prevent falls among hospitalized patients. One of such strategies is the use of exercises for patients with a history of and at risk of falls. Therefore, the PICOT question for the project will be as follows:

Among elderly patients discharged from the hospital at risk of falls, does the use of exercise intervention reduces the risk and rate of falls as compared to no intervention within six months?

Purpose of the Paper

            The purpose of this paper is to determine the effectiveness of an exercise intervention for discharged elderly patients at risk of falls when compared to no intervention over six months.

Levels of Evidence

            The type of question being asked in this project is a therapy question. It seeks to investigate the effectiveness of an evidence-based therapy in preventing and reducing the rates of falls among elderly patients discharged with increased risk of falls. The question seeks to inform nursing practice by providing insights into the need and efficacy of the intervention in promoting safety and quality of patient care. The best type of evidence to answer the question include randomized controlled trials, meta-analyses and systematic review. These sources of evidence have a high level of validity and reliability. The study outcomes have minimal bias, hence, their accuracy in informing nursing practice.

Search Strategy

            The search for the relevant sources of data was done on databases that included the university library, Cochrane, CINAHL, Embase, and PubMed. The search was done using specific terms. They included falls, falls prevention, falls prevention strategies, exercise intervention and falls, and falls in elderly. The initial search yielded several articles that related to the topic. However, I refined the search by limiting the results to those that were conducted over the past five years and were peer-reviewed. The refined results were more specific to the research questions. The two of the obtained articles that are relevant to the topic include the following:

Sun, M., Min, L., Xu, N., Huang, L., & Li, X. (2021). The Effect of Exercise Intervention on Reducing the Fall Risk in Older Adults: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(23), 12562. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182312562

Zhao, R., Bu, W., & Chen, X. (2019). The efficacy and safety of exercise for prevention of fall-related injuries in older people with different health conditions, and differing intervention protocols: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. BMC Geriatrics, 19(1), 341. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-019-1359-9

Conclusion

            Falls are part of the crucial public health concerns in the modern healthcare. Falls increase the risk of adverse outcomes such as premature mortalities and injuries. Evidence-based strategies can be adopted for fall prevention. An example, as proposed in this paper is the use of exercise intervention. Evidence-based data supports its use in patients with high risks of falls.

References

King, B., Pecanac, K., Krupp, A., Liebzeit, D., & Mahoney, J. (2018). Impact of fall prevention on nurses and care of fall risk patients. The Gerontologist, 58(2), 331–340.

Najafpour, Z., Godarzi, Z., Arab, M., & Yaseri, M. (2019). Risk Factors for Falls in Hospital In-Patients: A Prospective Nested Case Control Study. International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 8(5), 300–306. https://doi.org/10.15171/ijhpm.2019.11

Sun, M., Min, L., Xu, N., Huang, L., & Li, X. (2021). The Effect of Exercise Intervention on Reducing the Fall Risk in Older Adults: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(23), 12562. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182312562

Wong, R. M. Y., Chong, K. C., Law, S. W., Ho, W. T., Li, J., Chui, C. S., Chow, S. K. H., & Cheung, W. H. (2020). The effectiveness of exercises on fall and fracture prevention amongst community elderlies: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Orthopaedic Translation, 24, 58–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jot.2020.05.007

Zhao, R., Bu, W., & Chen, X. (2019). The efficacy and safety of exercise for prevention of fall-related injuries in older people with different health conditions, and differing intervention protocols: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. BMC Geriatrics, 19(1), 341. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-019-1359-9

BUY A CUSTOM PAPER HERE ON; Assignment: Search Strategy for Fall Prevention

Paper1
Topic: Search Strategy for Fall Prevention
Purpose
This paper is the first of three related assignments. The purpose of this initial paper is to briefly describe your search strategies when identifying two articles that pertain to FALL PREVENTION
Course outcomes: This assignment enables the student to meet the following course outcomes:
1: Examine the sources of knowledge that contribute to professional nursing practice.
2: Apply research principles to the interpretation of the content of published research studies.

Total points possible: 160 points
Preparing the assignment:
1) Follow these guidelines when completing this assignment. Speak with your faculty member if you have questions.
a. Individuals will complete this assignment independently.
b. Teams must assure that members do not use the same articles when completing this assignment.
c. Please make sure you do not duplicate articles within the papers
d. Paper should be 4 content pages in length. Title and reference pages are required but are excluded from 4 -page length.
2) The paper will include the following sections:
a. Clinical Question (45 points/28%)
• Describe the problem. What is the focus of your group’s work?
• Explain the significance of the problem in terms of patient outcomes. What health outcomes result from your problem? Or what statistics document this is a problem? You may find support on websites for government or professional organizations.
• PICOT question in support of the group topic.
• State the purpose of your paper. What will your paper do or describe? This is like a problem
statement. “The purpose of this paper is to . . .”
b. Levels of Evidence (20 points/13%)
• Identify the type of question being asked (therapy, prognosis, meaning, etc.).
• What is the best type of evidence to answer that question (e.g., RCT, cohort study, qualitative study, etc.)?
c. Search Strategy (65 points/41%)
• List search terms and results.
• Databases used (start with the –library). Link your search with the PICOT question described above.
• Refinement decisions. As you did your search, what decisions did you make in refinement to get your required articles down to a reasonable number for review? Were any limits used? If so, what?
• Identification of two (2) most relevant articles (primary sources published within the last 5 years).
d. Format (30 points/18%)
• Correct grammar and spelling.
• Include a title page.
• Use of headings for each section.
 Clinical Question, Levels of Evidence, Search Strategy, and Conclusion
• Adheres to current APA formatting and guidelines.
• 3 pages in length, excluding title and reference pages.
• Sources: 3 within the last 5 years.

KEY:
PICOT:
• Population/Patient Problem
• Intervention
• Comparison
• Outcome
• Time

Group Topic:
• Fall Prevention