Determination of nursing students’ attitudes towards preventing falls and approaches to reporting incidents

Abstract

This study was planned to determine nursing students’ attitudes towards preventing falls and their approaches to reporting incidents. This study has a descriptive, correlational and cross-sectional design. The study was carried out with the students studying in the nursing department at Health Sciences Faculty of a university between 22.04.2021 and 05.05.2021. A total of 220 students who volunteered to participate in the study were included in the study as a result of this. The data were collected by using ‘Student Descriptive Information Form’, ‘Incident Reporting Scale (IRS)’ and ‘Questionnaire Form to Determine Attitudes towards Preventing Falls (QDAPF)’ prepared by the researchers. Percentage calculation, Kruskal–Wallis test, Mann–Whitney U test and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient were used to evaluate the data. It was found that 76.8% of the nursing students in the study were female, 23.2% were male, the settlement where 38.6% lived the most was town, 62.3% lived with their families, 79.1% chose their profession willingly, 97.3% thought falls were preventable, 51.8% did not receive training about falls, 51.8% did not consider themselves competent in terms of preventing falls, 98.6% thought falls should be reported and 63.3% stated that reporting falls would harm healthcare professionals’ careers. Mean age of the students was found as 21.18 ± 2.16 years. In the study, the total mean score of IRS was found as 27.65 ± 3.71. It was found that ‘the intention to make internal reports’ subscale had the highest mean score (17.07 ± 2.93), while ‘being indifferent’ subscale had the lowest mean score (2.982 ± 1.70). The mean score of students from QDAPF was found as 87.51 ± 4.89. No statistically significant association was found between IRS and QDAPF in the study (p > 0.01). It was found that while the students being single and in their first year of study had increased scores from IRS, the students in their second year of study and those who had been trained about falls had more positive attitudes towards preventing falls than the other students. In the study, it was found that the mean scores of nursing students’ attitudes towards event reporting and prevention of falls were found to be high. It was also found that students’ attitudes towards preventing falls and their approaches to incident reporting did not affect each other. Students who had received training about falls were found to have high attitudes towards preventing falls. Trainings given about the importance of preventing falls and incident reporting will contribute to increasing patient safety.

Keywords: Patient, nursing, event reporting, fall, nursing student.