[A multidisciplinary approach to falls in a medium-stay hospital]

To approach the problem of the falls in an average stay hospital; identifying the patients of greater risk; and find out the circumstances in which the falls occurred.

A descriptive study of all the patients who entered the Guadarrama Hospital (Madrid) during year 2007 (n = 920). On admission, all patients were assessed using the Stratify falls risk scale, their cognitive and functional situation, unit of hospitalisation, record of falls and circumstances under which the falls occurred. The descriptive study and multivariate analysis was performed using the SPSS 16 statistics program.

During the period of study 144 falls took place. There was a falls/admission incidence of 14.30%. The highest number of falls (22.1%) occurred in the Functional Recovery Unit (FRU) and patients with stroke being the group that suffered most falls (31%). Most falls were registered during the morning shift, with 51%. The greatest number of falls occurred from a chair (44%) and 66% of the patients had mobility limitations. A total of 34% of the patients had fallen previously. When the logistic regression analysis was made, the variables that remained with statistically significant association with falls, were: the Barthel index on admission (Exp beta 2.5, 95%CI; 1.5-4.2; P < 0,01) and the STRATIFY scale on admission (Exp beta 1.67, 95%CI; 1.05-2.66; P = 0.02)

The chronic patients with greater functional deterioration are more prone to suffer falls. With respect to patient activity at the time of the fall, we can observe that most of them were seated and tried to stand up.