Sammanfattning
Background: Fall prevention in nursing homes is one of the main target areas set out in the Norwegian Patient Safety Programme, and the documentation of fall hazards is a requirement.
Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate whether the nursing homes’ documentation practices with respect to fall incidents comply with their internal documentation requirements and to identify any factors associated with compliance.
Method: This quality improvement project involves a retrospective descriptive study which reviewed the fall documentation practices at three different nursing homes and examined whether these practices were compliant with the nursing homes’ internal documentation requirements.
Results: The total sample included 652 people. Of these, 208 (32 per cent) had experienced a fall. A total of 556 fall incidents were reported for these people. Falls involving injuries (pain, cuts, fractures) accounted for 26 per cent of the reported incidents. Only 10.6 per cent of the falls were reported in accordance with the nursing homes’ internal requirements. There was significant variation between nursing homes with respect to their documentation practices, but fractures were generally associated with correct completion of an injury report form.
Conclusion: The results show that nursing homes fail to comply with their own documentation requirements in connection with falls in general, but that falls involving fractures were associated with correct documentation practices.