Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
E-Journal of Dokuz Eylul University Nursing Faculty, cilt.16, sa.4, ss.487-501, 2023 (Scopus)
Background: Falls in psychiatric wards have been a big safety problem. Objectives: This study was carried out to determine the knowledge and opinions of nurses working in adult psychiatric clinics about the patient falls and prevention. Methods: This study was descriptive. The research was carried out at two university hospitals, two education and research hospitals, one public hospital and one mental health and psychiatric hospital in İzmir province in June-September 2017. The sample of the study consisted of 80 nurses. Data collection was created in the literature of nurses in accordance with the information and opinions regarding the evaluation form and preventing patient falls were used. Number and percentage distributions, mean and standard deviation analysis were used in the evaluation of the data. Results: 97.5% of the nurses working in the psychiatric wards have experienced falling of patients. 85% of the nurses stated that there may be unobserved and undeclared falls. 88.8% of the nurses consider the patient falls as an important problem and 87.5% think that they have a role in preventing falls. 57.5% of the nurses stated that they needed training on falling and preventing falls. Conclusion: According to the experience of nurses in psychiatric clinics, patient falls are considerable. The fact that nurses have a high rate of unexplained and unrecognized patient falls indicates that the risk of falling should be assessed and protective measures should be taken according to the risk level. It is recommended that preventive programs, such as assessing the risk of falling for nurses working in psychiatric clinics, taking precautions to prevent falls in the therapeutic environment, are implemented.