Patient Safety Through Fall Prevention - Research Paper Example

The review of past research will help in the understanding of the foundation of this study. The main reason for this literature review section is to enable the researcher to determine the major gaps in research. Also, this section is useful as it provides the researcher with an outline of the requirements before undertaking this research. The articles that are to be used in this review will be sourced from online databases and search engines. The journal databases are ProQuest and PubMed, and the search engine to be used is Google Scholar.

The articles that are used in this review are related to the promotion of patient safety through fall prevention. Hospitals and nursing care facilities are meant to keep patients safe during the period of their hospitalization. Patients often require hospitalization to efficiently manage their conditions and ensure that they leave the hospitals with improved health. The hospital management team and healthcare staff should make sure that patient safety is ensured during the patient care in the hospital.

However, despite the efforts of the staff to ensure patient safety, some patients fall in the period that they are in hospital (Lake et al., 2010). Depending on the type of nursing unit, an average of 3 to 5 out of 1000 patients fall ("Falls | AHRQ Patient Safety Network," n.d.). Patient falls occur in almost all units of hospital care. However, some units record the highest number of falls. The areas are the medial unit, long-term care facilities for the elderly, the neurology unit, and the Intensive Care Unit (Lake et al.

, 2010, Shekelle, 2013). Falls occurring in elderly patients are a common occurrence. The reasons for the high rates of falls are an existing history of falls, conditions that cause confusion or disorientation, and the need to constantly visit the toilet due to incontinence (al Tehewy et al., 2015).Patient falls can result in serious physical and psychological outcomes on the patient.