Fall prevention activities and associated factors among nurses in Vietnam's Mekong Delta

Nhan Thi Nguyen; Thuy Hong Phan; Faye Irene Hummel

doi:10.2478/FON-2025-0025

Abstract：Objective: Patient falls in the healthcare settings are unwanted events that can have severe consequences for both inpatients and outpatients; however, falls are preventable and nurses play an important role in this prevention. The purpose of this study was to investigate nurse activities in fall prevention and its relevant factors. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at Can Tho Central General Hospital, with the participation of 90 nurses. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire consisting of five parts, including personal characteristics, knowledge about fall prevention, self-efficacy in fall prevention, nursing practice environment, and fall prevention activities. The data were entered and analyzed using SPSS 18.0 software with descriptive statistics, independent t-test, one-way ANOVA, and Pearson's correlation coefficients. Results: The mean score of participants' knowledge in fall prevention was 4.67 (SD=2.50) out of 11 scores; the self-efficacy score was 49.43 (SD=8.55) out of 66 scores; nursing practice environment score was 29.69 (SD=4.00) out of 40 scores; and the fall prevention activity scores were 75.58 (SD=9.96) out of 100 scores. Factors related to fall prevention activities included gender (p=0.03), place of work (p=0.02), number of fall prevention training sessions (p=0.03), self-efficacy in fall prevention (r=0.61, p＜0.001), and the nursing practice environment (r=0.25, p＜0.05). Conclusions: An intervention program for fall prevention can be implemented to enhance the knowledge about fall prevention among nurses and improve the nursing practice environment to enhance patient safety.