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Abstract
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Falls are common among nursing home (NH) residents with 4% to 11% of falls resulting in fracture or other serious injury.1, 2 Injurious falls have a higher incidence and mortality in NH residents than falls among community dwellers.1, 3, 4 Therefore, it is important to accurately identify falls in NH residents.
The Minimum Data Set (MDS) was developed as a means to assess the health status of NH residents.5 In 2010, the MDS v3.0 was deployed in the United States, with considerable changes in how falls and injuries are assessed.6 The purpose of our study was to validate the MDS v3.0 items on falls and injuries with chart review in two facilities.
Our study was conducted in two long‐term care facilities (MA&NC). Both facilities employ software that auto‐populates items using the prior MDS assessment, including falls reporting. Eligible residents had at least two valid MDS assessments between January 2016 and April 2019. From the first facility we randomly selected 50 residents with an MDS indicator for an injurious fall, 50 with an MDS indicator for a fall without injury, and 50 without fall. Only two major injuries were initially selected, and so we identified an additional 23 residents with an indicator of major or minor injury. From the second facility, we sampled all residents with an injurious fall indicator (n = 10), all residents with a fall without injury (n = 18), and a random sample of 50 residents without fall.
The MDS v3.0 queries whether a fall has occurred since admission or since the last MDS assessment. If a fall occurred, staff categorize the number of falls with no injury, minor injury, or major injury. A major injury is defined as falls resulting in fracture, dislocation, concussion, or intracranial hemorrhage. Minor injuries are defined as falls resulting in pain, or a skin tear, abrasion, laceration, bruise, hematoma, or sprain...
Language: en |