University Psychiatric Center, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Public Psychiatric Care Center Rekem, Rekem, Belgium.
Front Public Health. 2022 Oct 28;10:1020975. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.1020975. eCollection 2022.
Falls in elderly patients treated in general hospitals have already been the focus of several studies. Research within psychiatric settings, however, remains limited, despite the fact that this population has a number of characteristics that could increase the fall risk. The aim of this retrospective study was to estimate the prevalence of falling in patients with a psychiatric hospital setting.
A retrospective descriptive chart review of falls registered in the period July 1, 2013 until June 30, 2019 in a Belgian University Psychiatric Hospital was conducted. Data were collected from the "patient related incident report and management system" (PiMS) of the hospital. All registered falls of all hospitalized patients were included in the study.
During the 6-year study period an incidence of 4.4 falls per 1,000 patient days was found. Only 0.5% of the falls resulted in severe injury and none of these falls were fatal. Eighty percent of falls involved a patient over the age of 65. Only 25.0% of the elderly patients suffered physical consequences, while injuries were present in 31.4% of adults and 68.2% of young patients. The two most common causes of a fall were the health status (63.3%) and the behavior (55.1%) of the patient.
The estimated prevalence of falls in our study was generally in line with the rates found in literature on falls in psychiatric settings. Falls in psychiatric settings occur both in younger and older patients, suggesting that all age categories deserve sufficient attention in fall prevention policies. However, more research is necessary to improve fall prevention policies.
在综合医院接受治疗的老年患者的跌倒问题已经成为多项研究的焦点。然而，尽管该人群存在一些可能增加跌倒风险的特征，但精神科环境中的研究仍然有限。本回顾性研究旨在评估精神科住院患者跌倒的发生率。
对 2013 年 7 月 1 日至 2019 年 6 月 30 日期间在比利时一所大学精神病院登记的跌倒事件进行回顾性描述性图表审查。数据来自医院的“患者相关事件报告和管理系统”（PiMS）。所有住院患者的跌倒均被纳入研究。
在 6 年的研究期间，每 1000 个患者日的跌倒发生率为 4.4 次。只有 0.5%的跌倒导致严重伤害，且无死亡事件发生。80%的跌倒发生在 65 岁以上的患者。只有 25.0%的老年患者遭受身体伤害，而成年人中 31.4%和年轻患者中 68.2%存在受伤情况。跌倒的两个最常见原因是患者的健康状况（63.3%）和行为（55.1%）。
我们研究中估计的跌倒发生率与文献中精神科环境中跌倒发生率基本一致。精神科环境中的跌倒发生在年轻和年老患者中，这表明所有年龄组在跌倒预防政策中都应得到足够的关注。然而，需要进一步的研究来改进跌倒预防政策。
