Purpose: This pilot project evaluated the feasibility of conducting a study describing parental characteristics associated with pediatric hospital falls.
Design and methods: This observational case-control study enrolled parent-child dyads of children who fell in the hospital and age-matched controls. Parents completed demographic, anxiety, depression, fatigue, sleep disturbance and stress questionnaires.
Results: Four of 14 (28.6%) eligible faller dyads were recruited. Stress scores were correlated with anxiety and depression scores. Power calculations indicated a need for 392 fallers for a future study to identify associations of parent characteristics and pediatric hospital falls.
Conclusions: Parents should be informed the ultimate goal of the research is to understand additional ways to prevent pediatric hospital falls. To decrease parental distraction during recruitment, researchers should engage volunteers or child life specialists to entertain younger children. Future studies should consider inclusion of non-English speaking subjects and children discharged within the post-fall eligibility time frame. To decrease multicollinearity concerns, the parent stress tool should be omitted. Due to the large number of fallers needed for an adequately powered sample, a multi-site study will be needed.
Practice implications: A parent is often present when their child falls in the hospital. Fall risk assessment focuses on patient characteristics, neglecting parental psychophysical characteristics which may be associated with risk of falling in the hospital. Associations of parent psychophysical characteristics and pediatric hospital falls needs to be studied further. This pilot study supports the feasibility of and provides recommendations for conducting a study to describe parent characteristics associated with pediatric hospital falls.
Keywords: Fall; Fall risk; Hospital; Inpatient; Parent.
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