Abstract:

Determınatıon of Nursing Practices for Prevention of Patient Falls Objective: This study was descriptively carried out in order to determine the nurses’ practices for prevention the patient fallings. Method: The study was carried out in a university hospital and two state hospitals related to T.R. Ministry of Health between the dates of 15th January and 15th December. The sample of the study was consisted of 181 nurses of those hospitals, who worked in the clinics except the polyclinics and intensive care clinics and who accepted to participate in the study. Data were collected by using the Question Form including the nurses’ socio-demographic attributes and practices for avoiding the fallings. In evaluation of the data, number and percentage calculation and Chi-Square test were used. Findings: 97.2% of the nurses included in the scope of the study were women, 46.5% of them had bachelor’s degree, the average age of them was (min. 18, max 50) 32.55±7.49, 54.7% of them worked in university hospital, and 45.3% of them worked in the state hospital. 71.3% of the nurses stated that they didn’t evaluate the patients’ risk of falling, 51.8% of them stated they didn’t use indicator to make the patients with the risk of falling recognized, 45.3% of them stated they removed the unnecessary furniture against the risk of falling while designing the patients’ rooms, 69.6% of them stated they paid attention to provide the patients with the risk of falling rooms close to the nurse station, and 65.2% of them stated they used fixing. Conclusion: It was concluded that most of the nurses didn’t evaluate the patients’ risk of falling, but the precautions they took for prevention the patients from falling were similar with the precautions determined in the literature.

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