Date of Award

Summer 2025

Project Type

Thesis

College or School

CHHS

Department

Nursing

Departments (Collect)

Nursing

Program or Major

Direct Entry Masters of Nursing

Degree Name

Master of Science

First Advisor

Elizabeth Evans DNP, RN, CNL

Second Advisor

Pamela S. Kallmerten PhD, DNP, RN, CNL

Abstract

Background:

Patients are at an increased risk for falls on a medical-surgical unit due to a variety of factors such as increased age, medications, altered mobility, and more. Several fall prevention interventions are used to prevent falls, including use of call bells, bed and chair alarms, maintain a clutter free environment, using a fall risk assessment upon admission, and providing patient and staff education. Reinforcing education for nursing staff has been shown to be one of the most effective interventions in preventing and reducing the number of falls as it increases awareness of falls.

Local Problem:

Within the microsystem, patient falls both with and without injury have been reported monthly. Therefore, a need to reinforce nursing staff education on falls and fall prevention interventions to help increase awareness and reduce the number of falls was identified on the unit.

Methods:

Using the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle, a quality improvement project was developed to reinforce nursing staff education on falls and fall prevention interventions.

Intervention:

A pre-intervention survey was created to identify areas of education that need to be reinforced. Using the data collected from the pre-intervention survey, an educational PowerPoint® presentation was created that provided information regarding falls and evidence-based fall prevention interventions. A post-intervention survey was sent to all nursing staff following the intervention to determine the effectiveness of the educational presentation.

Results:

Data analysis was performed by comparing the percentage of questions answered correctly from the pre-intervention and the post-intervention survey. Each question was analyzed for a percentage increase in questions answered correctly to determine if the educational intervention was effective. Pre-intervention survey results indicated an average of 57% correct answers chosen. After the implementation, the average of correct answers increased to 65% in the post-intervention survey, indicating that there was a slight increase in nursing staff awareness of falls and fall prevention interventions.

Conclusion:

The quality improvement (QI) project aimed to increase nursing staff awareness of fall prevention interventions within a medical-surgical unit. While there was a difference in percentage answered correctly between the pre-intervention survey answers and post-intervention survey, there was a discrepancy in participation between the surveys, which could have resulted in missed data. It is recommended for future studies to continue to reinforce nursing staff education on fall prevention interventions. Overall, the QI identified an issue of patient falls within the medical-surgical unit and sought to reinforce nursing staff education to increase patient safety and health outcomes.

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