Abstract

CRISTINA INOUE, Kelly et al. Risk of falling out of bed. Nursing’s challenge for the patient’s safety. Invest. educ. enferm [online]. 2011, vol.29, n.3, pp.459-466. ISSN 0120-5307.

Objective. To asses factors associated to the patient’s risk of falling out of bed. Methodology. Cross sectional descriptive study carried out in two public university hospitals (A and B). The Active Research Registry Instrument was used, and the risk of falling out of bed was determined by patient observation and verification of risk factors documented in the clinical history. Results. 1 307 observations were done. More than half of the cases had risk of falling out of bed.The risk of falling was significantly higher in men, in patients ≥60 years of age and people with neurological disease. Between the patients with risk of falling out of bed, the hospital B had a higher risk (91.6%) compared to A (69.9%). Conclusion. There is a high risk of falling out of bed for inpatients, especially in hospital B. It is necessary to improve nursing attention, and make some changes in the physical area aiming to offer maximum quality service to the patient.

Keywords : safety management; quality assurance; health care; nursing; hospital care.