Pediatric Disease, Care & Management

Background: Falls represent a major public health problem around the world. In the hospital setting, falls continue to be the number one adverse event with approximately 3-20% of inpatients falling at least once during their hospitalization. Fall measurements have been identified as important to patient outcomes by several organizations based on the fact that falls are the most frequently reported adverse patient event among adults in the inpatient setting.  Aim of this study is to identify the effect of risk reduction interventions for hospitalized pediatric patient, implement action to prevent injury, establish documentation guidelines, to provide a safe therapeutic environment. Subjects and Method; Design: This study was quasi-experimental study (Pre-/Post-test). Setting: The study setting was Menoufia University Pediatric Hospital- Egypt. Sample: a). A convenience sample of a total number of 60 pediatric patients.They was selected according to the following inclusion Criteria: all patients male and female with age 3-18 years already admitted to pediatrics words, at Menoufia University hospital and their caregivers, Exclusion criteria were those falls of visitors or patient falls from the other units not included in the study, such as outpatient and the neonatal intensive care units, B).  A convenience sample of 40 nurses were selected who take-care of 60 pediatric patients. Tools for Data collection: 1. The Humpty Dumpty Falls Scale to assesses pediatric inpatients’ risk for falls. 2. Interviewing Questionnaire for Nurses, 3. Interviewing Questionnaire for children' caregivers, and observational chicklist for nurses practice. Results: By using Humpty Dumpty Falls Scale 31.3% were identified as low risk, and 68.3% were identified as high risk fall of hospitalized pediatric patients. The present study revealed that 46.7 % of high risk fall of pediatric patients their age from 3years to less than 8 years. Compared to 23.3% of low risk fall at the same age. As regards to gender, it was clarified that 38.3% pediatric patients of high risk fall score represent male patients compared to 15% of female. Considering Children Caregivers' knowledge regarding; serious symptoms that may occur after his / her fall represents 60 % at post test. The present study showed that most of studied pediatric nurses was improved their knowledge in post test (satisfactory) than in the pretest (wrong answer) in the pretest regarding "Meaning of Fall". Most of nurses followed the General Strategies for Falls Prevention for High Risk Pediatric Patients in post–test than in pretest. Conclusions: The implementation of fall reduction intervention for hospitalized pediatric patients at risk for falls had significantly improve nurses knowledge and practice and improve caregivers of children knowledge in-order to manage fall correctlyand reduce fall occurance. Recommedations:- Implementation of risk assessment tool would allow all hospitalized children to be properly assessed for fall risk, and document of fall assessment tool into the electronic medical record would allow the nurse to implement fall reduction intervention for high risk children 

Keywords: Fall Reduction Intervention- Pediatric Patients- at Risk for falls