Abstract
This project was a collaborative effort in which the work and decision making was equally shared by both researchers. In 2005, a Joint Commission initiated a national safety goal to reduce patient harm from falls. The Morse Fall Scale, a validated and the most rigorous scale tested for adults has never been validated in children and is inappropriately being used by pediatric nurses to assess the fall risk of hospitalized pediatric patients. Testing is needed to validate the few developmentally appropriate pediatric fall scales that are available for hospitalized pediatric patients. Therefore, a descriptive exploratory study was done to examine the sensitivity and specificity of the Cummings Pediatric Fall Assessment Scale, the characteristics frequently identified with falls and the sensitivity of the commonly used adult Morse Fall assessment Scale. Sources of Data Retrospective chart review of 71 documented pediatric falls during hospitalization was done on children who had fallen during their hospitalization, collecting characteristics frequently identified with pediatric falls. Of the 71 charts, 47 charts were reviewed to examine the sensitivity of the Cummings Pediatric Falls Assessment Scare and 34 charts were reviewed to examine the sensitivity of the Morse Fall Scale tool. An additional 30 health records of children who did not fall were examined to identify the specificity of the Cummings Fall Assessment Scale. Conclusions Reached Children less than 5 years of age and adolescents comprised the majority of falls reported. Male children fell more often then female children. Most falls occurred in the child’s room. Parental presence was not a deterrent to the fall. Children fell more commonly in the late morning and the early evening, with the majority of falls occurring within 72 hours of admission. Our findings along with previous research a support a child’s maturing cognitive and motor development plays a major factor in pediatric falls, as well as expands on new knowledge to support the use of a developmentally appropriate fall risk assessment tool to identify hospitalized children at risk for falls.