Introduction
Nursing is defined as a profession concerned with offering care and assistance to patients to gain better health outcomes. The role and responsibility of nurses include offering direct patient care, monitoring vital signs, assisting patients physically, emotionally, maintaining medical records, as well as collaborating with healthcare professionals to ensure the rapid recovery of patients. Besides this, nursing practice refers to interventions and actions performed by the registered nurse to offer required care to patients, as well as ensuring their physical and psychological well-being. The present report will be based on the “fall” topic within healthcare.
Fall is defined as an unexpected event within healthcare where a patient lies on the floor due to a health condition, consciousness, mobility impairment, slippery floors, cluttered space, and so more. The rate of falling is expected to be high among older people, which results in several risks. The fall results in making the health condition of the patient worsen as it significantly increases additional injuries to patients, as well as increases the cost of medications (Morris et al, 2022).
The present study will evaluate two articles related to the “falls” topic in healthcare and outline their summary and relevance to nursing practice. Apart from this, the report will also reflect the contribution of findings in enhancing nursing knowledge and practices in terms of articles 1 and 2. It will also highlight a credible source of information.
Students looking for Best Assignment Help Australia can refer to this nursing assignment sample to understand how to evaluate research articles, analyse patient safety issues and apply evidence-based practices in nursing.
Nursing Topic
A fall is an event in which an individual comes to rest inadvertently on the floor, which might result in injury.
Credible source of information
The article 1 is highly credible as it is peer-reviewed by different scholars and experts to evaluate the quality and validity of the research study. It is important because it demonstrates the quality of a published study (Field, 2025).
The article 2 is significantly peer-reviewed as it is evaluated by experts and scholars before publishing. Peer-reviewed is important as it maintains the integrity and accuracy of the work (Morley and Grammer, 2021).
Summary of topic and relevance to nursing practice
Referring to article 1, it is summarised that the unexpected event of fall is significantly observed among the admitted patients, which results in additional injuries and increased healthcare costs. The study was conducted using a qualitative research type, and it optimised authentic databases such as CINAHL, EBSCO, MEDLINE and PubMed. From the article, it is summarised that the age of patients, psychotropic & narcotic drugs, and chronic diseases. Urologic conditions, optimisation of anti-epileptics, limb amputation and environmental factors are among the main factors in increasing falls risk among the patients (Alsubaie, Almutary and Sofar, 2020).
The narcotic drugs result in an increase in blood pressure among the patients, which results in a decline level of balance, as a result increasing the chances of falls. In addition, chronic diseases also impact older people`s mental health as well as physical health, resulting in an increased risk of falls. In addition, it is summed up that intrinsic as well as extrinsic factors increase fall events during hospitalisation. As a result, it is important for the healthcare staff and nursing professionals to build preventive strategies to decrease the rate of falls among patients.
From article 2, it is summed up that presently, hospitals are introducing a variety of fall prevention programs to decrease fall rates among patients in hospitals. However, it is identified that the implementation of prevention strategies becomes ineffective if patients do not perceive themselves at risk for falling and do not comply with prevention strategies. It is evaluated that the research study is based on a quantitative type; the data were collected from 100 patients who had a Morse Fall Scale Score greater than 45 and evaluated via descriptive statistics, etc. From the findings, it is reviewed that only 55% of respondents considered themselves at a risk of falling (Tymkew et al, 2023).
Also, it is identified that increasing confidence of patients in their ability to perform mobility tasks results in a decline in the intention to ask for help, as well as to feel fear of falling. However, patients who were admitted due to falls represented a lower confidence score as well as higher fear scores. Hence, it is concluded that patients with high scores in fall risk assessment generally don`t perceive themselves as high risk of falling as a result of not being able to engage in fall prevention activities. Therefore, the development of a fall risk assessment that considers both the psychological condition and perception of fall risk of patients can help in decline fall rates in acute care settings.
Contribution to nursing knowledge
From the findings of article 1, it is evaluated that major factors in the fall event of hospitalisation include age, chronic diseases, psychotropic drugs, limb assumptions and other environmental factors. Hence, it is important for me as a nurse to develop preventive strategies to effectively support the problem of falls among hospitalised patients. It includes offering patients a personalised care assistant, assistive devices like canes, wheelchairs, etc, to support the patients effectively.
The study contributes to identifying the reasons that correspondingly help in enhancing the knowledge of considering the falls factor while assisting as well as providing care to the patients. However, it is identified that within this area, no study has been conducted on identifying different strategies for the decline rate of falls within hospitals. As a result, further research is required in terms of recognising different actions, interventions and strategies for preventing falls.
In reference to the findings of article 2, it is evaluated that for a significant decline in fall rate among the patients, it is important to create and adopt a fall risk assessment that takes into consideration both the perception of fall risk among patients as well as their psychological condition. The findings result in enhancing the nursing knowledge as well as practice by making appropriate interventions according to the needs of patients, their psychological state, as well as their capacity to perceive the risk. For instance, if a patient’s psychological state is not effective for mobility, then assistive devices such as wheelchairs, sitters, etc. provided to patients, which helps in reducing the fall rate in a significant manner.
As a nurse, the article's findings improve my nursing knowledge in terms of offering care to patients, the identification of patients' physical requirements as well as psychological well-being enables offering assistance while considering worrying factors, and it helps in decline fall rates among patients efficiently.
However, currently, there is a lack of research conducted on identifying appropriate interventions to reduce the fall rate among patients in hospitals, which is one of the research gaps. Hence, further studies must be performed in regards to interventions and actions for the decline in fall rate at hospitalisation to fill the gap effectively.
Understanding research findings and applying them to clinical practice is an important part of nursing education. Students can also get help with Evidence Based Nursing Assignment to understand how research evidence supports clinical decisions and improves patient care.
Conclusion
To sum up, all that has been articulated is that falls rate among patients in healthcare is one of the problems which results in influences the overall health as well as the cost of hospitalisation for patients. In the context of the current report, through evaluating article 1, it is summed up that age, chronic diseases, limb amputation, and narcotic drugs, urologic conditions, are among the factors that increase the fall rate among hospitalisation patients. However, the article contributes to enhancing nurses' practices by developing preventive strategies for falls through considering the mentioned factors, like offering chairs.
In addition, from Article 2, it is interpreted that falls prevention strategies become ineffective if patients fail to perceive themselves at risk. This leads to a contribution to nursing practices that it is important to consider the psychological state and ability of falls perception of the patient need to consider in developing falls risk assessment with an aim of declining the falls rate.
References
- Alsubaie, F., Almutary, H. and Sofar, S., 2020. Assessing the Risk Factors of Fall among Hospitalized Adult Patients: A Scoping Review. Evidence-Based Nursing Research, 2(4), pp.79-92.
- Field, R.E., 2025. The importance of peer reviewed, PubMed® listed journals in the age of Open Access journal publishing. Journal of Hip Preservation Surgery, 12(2), pp.85-86.
- Morley, C.P. and Grammer, S., 2021. Now more than ever: reflections on the state and importance of peer review. PRiMER: Peer-review reports in medical education research, 5, p.36.
- Morris, M.E., Webster, K., Jones, C., Hill, A.M., Haines, T., McPhail, S., Kiegaldie, D., Slade, S., Jazayeri, D., Heng, H. and Shorr, R., 2022. Interventions to reduce falls in hospitals: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Age and Ageing, 51(5), p.afac077.
- Tymkew, H., Taylor, B., Vyers, K., Costantinou, E., Arroyo, C. and Schallom, M., 2023. patient perception of fall risk in the Acute Care setting. AJN The American Journal of Nursing, 123(6), pp.20-25.
