A multicentre survey of falls among Danish hospice patients

Abstract

The risk of falling is high among palliative and end-of-life care patients, and neither a systematic fall assessment nor an evaluation of general fall prevention has been carried out at Danish hospices. This descriptive study investigated the frequency and circumstances of falls in 10 hospices comprising 110 beds during 6 months of monitoring. An average of more than two falls per hospice per month was found, with 44% of the incidents occurring during the first 5 days after admittance. Thirty-two percent of patients died within 5 days of falling. More falls occurred on Wednesdays than on any other day, and most occurred late in the evenings and at night. Only 9% were properly reported as adverse events to the Danish Patient Safety Database. The findings indicate that efforts to significantly reduce the number of falls must be based on a more focused strategy of fall prevention.