A Real-World Study on the Morse Fall Scale and Clinical Judgment Method for Fall Risk in Adult Inpatients

Area of Science:

• Gerontology
• Healthcare Management
• Patient Safety

Background:

• Inpatient falls are a major patient safety concern, leading to increased healthcare costs.
• Standardized fall risk assessment tools are crucial for effective prevention strategies.
• Comparative effectiveness of widely used tools like the Morse Fall Scale (MFS) and Clinical Judgment Method for Fall Risk (CJMF) needs further evaluation in real-world settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the predictive performance of the MFS and CJMF for assessing fall risk in hospitalized adults.
• To evaluate the efficacy of these tools across different patient demographics and hospital departments using real-world data.

Main Methods:

• A retrospective analysis of 206,846 adult inpatients from a tertiary hospital (January 2022 - December 2023).
• Inclusion criteria: hospital stay ≥24 hours, fall risk assessment within 24 hours of admission.
• Statistical analysis included covariance analysis and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves to compare predictive efficacy.

Main Results:

• The MFS demonstrated a higher area under the curve (AUC = 0.825) compared to CJMF (AUC = 0.602) for predicting inpatient falls.
• CJMF showed 100% sensitivity, while MFS had higher specificity, particularly in surgical departments (AUC = 0.887) and for patients aged ≥75 (AUC = 0.837).
• Age significantly impacted fall risk; gender did not show statistical significance.

Conclusions:

• The MFS offers superior risk stratification, while CJMF provides efficient rapid screening, especially for patients with single high-risk factors.
• A proposed two-stage