Factors associated with the risk of fall in adults in the postoperative period: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Objective: to assess the factors associated with the risk of fall in patients undergoing surgical procedures. Method: quantitative and cross-sectional study carried out with 257 adult patients in a hospital in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Data were collected using the sociodemographic and clinical questionnaire, the Morse Fall Scale, and the Quality of Recovery Score. Data were submitted to descriptive statistical analysis and multinomial logistic regression. The level of significance was set at 0.05. Results: 35.4% of patients had high risk of falls, 38.9% had moderate risk and 25.7% had low risk. The mean value in the surgical recovery scale was 175.37 points and no patient presented poor surgical recovery. Regarding the results of the bivariate analysis, it was found that age (p<0.001), SAH (p<0.001) and diabetes (p=0.017) were positively associated with high risk of fall, whereas cancer (p=0.004) was positively associated with moderate risk of fall. Surgical recovery (p=0,008) was inversely associated with high risk of fall. Conclusion: the results of this study allowed the identification of five factors associated with the risk of fall in adults in the postoperative hospital stay. These findings may support the planning of nursing actions aimed at preventing the risk of fall in the postoperative period.