REFINE (Reducing Falls in In-patient Elderly): a randomised controlled trial
Background: Falls in hospitals are common, resulting in injury and anxiety to patients, and large costs to NHS organisations. More than half of all in-patient falls in elderly people in acute care settings occur at the bedside, during transfers or whilst getting up to go to the toilet. In the majori...
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| Format: | Article |
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BioMed Central
2009
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3147/ |
| _version_ | 1848790963317637120 |
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| author | Vass, Catherine D. Sahota, Opinder Drummond, Avril Kendrick, Denise Gladman, John Sach, Tracey Avis, Mark Grainge, Matthew |
| author_facet | Vass, Catherine D. Sahota, Opinder Drummond, Avril Kendrick, Denise Gladman, John Sach, Tracey Avis, Mark Grainge, Matthew |
| author_sort | Vass, Catherine D. |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Background: Falls in hospitals are common, resulting in injury and anxiety to patients, and large costs to NHS organisations. More than half of all in-patient falls in elderly people in acute care settings occur at the bedside, during transfers or whilst getting up to go to the toilet. In the majority of cases these falls are unwitnessed. There is insufficient evidence underpinning the effectiveness of interventions to guide clinical staff regarding the reduction of falls in the elderly inpatient. New patient monitoring technologies have the potential to offer advances in falls prevention. Bedside sensor equipment can alert staff, not in the immediate vicinity, to a potential problem and avert a fall. However no studies utilizing this assistive technology have demonstrated a significant reduction in falls rates in a randomised controlled trial setting.
Methods/Design: The research design is an individual patient randomised controlled trial of bedside chair and bed pressure sensors, incorporating a radio-paging alerting mode to alert staff to patients rising from their bed or chair, across five acute elderly care wards in Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. Participants will be randomised to bedside chair and bed sensors or to usual care (without the use of sensors). The primary outcome is the number of bedside in-patient falls.
Discussion: The REFINE study is the first randomised controlled trial of bedside pressure sensors in elderly inpatients in an acute NHS Trust. We will assess whether falls can be successfully and cost effectively reduced using this technology, and report on its acceptability to both patients and staff. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T18:20:58Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-3147 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T18:20:58Z |
| publishDate | 2009 |
| publisher | BioMed Central |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-31472020-05-04T16:28:37Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3147/ REFINE (Reducing Falls in In-patient Elderly): a randomised controlled trial Vass, Catherine D. Sahota, Opinder Drummond, Avril Kendrick, Denise Gladman, John Sach, Tracey Avis, Mark Grainge, Matthew Background: Falls in hospitals are common, resulting in injury and anxiety to patients, and large costs to NHS organisations. More than half of all in-patient falls in elderly people in acute care settings occur at the bedside, during transfers or whilst getting up to go to the toilet. In the majority of cases these falls are unwitnessed. There is insufficient evidence underpinning the effectiveness of interventions to guide clinical staff regarding the reduction of falls in the elderly inpatient. New patient monitoring technologies have the potential to offer advances in falls prevention. Bedside sensor equipment can alert staff, not in the immediate vicinity, to a potential problem and avert a fall. However no studies utilizing this assistive technology have demonstrated a significant reduction in falls rates in a randomised controlled trial setting. Methods/Design: The research design is an individual patient randomised controlled trial of bedside chair and bed pressure sensors, incorporating a radio-paging alerting mode to alert staff to patients rising from their bed or chair, across five acute elderly care wards in Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. Participants will be randomised to bedside chair and bed sensors or to usual care (without the use of sensors). The primary outcome is the number of bedside in-patient falls. Discussion: The REFINE study is the first randomised controlled trial of bedside pressure sensors in elderly inpatients in an acute NHS Trust. We will assess whether falls can be successfully and cost effectively reduced using this technology, and report on its acceptability to both patients and staff. BioMed Central 2009-09-10 Article PeerReviewed Vass, Catherine D., Sahota, Opinder, Drummond, Avril, Kendrick, Denise, Gladman, John, Sach, Tracey, Avis, Mark and Grainge, Matthew (2009) REFINE (Reducing Falls in In-patient Elderly): a randomised controlled trial. Trials, 10 (Septem). 9/1-9/9. ISSN 1745-6215 http://www.trialsjournal.com/content/10/1/83 doi:10.1186/1745-6215-10-83 doi:10.1186/1745-6215-10-83 |
| spellingShingle | Vass, Catherine D. Sahota, Opinder Drummond, Avril Kendrick, Denise Gladman, John Sach, Tracey Avis, Mark Grainge, Matthew REFINE (Reducing Falls in In-patient Elderly): a randomised controlled trial |
| title | REFINE (Reducing Falls in In-patient Elderly): a randomised controlled trial |
| title_full | REFINE (Reducing Falls in In-patient Elderly): a randomised controlled trial |
| title_fullStr | REFINE (Reducing Falls in In-patient Elderly): a randomised controlled trial |
| title_full_unstemmed | REFINE (Reducing Falls in In-patient Elderly): a randomised controlled trial |
| title_short | REFINE (Reducing Falls in In-patient Elderly): a randomised controlled trial |
| title_sort | refine (reducing falls in in-patient elderly): a randomised controlled trial |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3147/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3147/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3147/ |