SAFE PATIENT HANDLING AND MOVEMENT Table 5 Continued. Measured Push Forces for Operating Room Equipment
The evidence review for this guideline did not reveal any research studies related to fall- risk assessments specific to the perioperative environment. The recommendation for items to be included in the perioperative fall-risk assessment has been extrapolated from research studies related to hospital falls. In a correlational study involving a second- ary analysis of data from a methodological multisite study conducted in the southeastern region of the United States, Moe et al282 lyzed data from 281,865
ana- falls to identify risk fac- tors that could predict the likelihood that
patients in an acute care setting might fall. The researchers found three major predictors of patient falls in the hospital setting: a previous fall within the past 6 months, patient confu- sion, and patient toileting issues. Oliver et al283
conducted a systematic review
of 13 published case control or cohort studies related to hospital patient falls. The research- ers found that despite the heterogeneity of the settings, populations, and risk factors studied, certain risk factors consistently emerged as significant. These factors included gait instabil- ity; lower limb weakness; urinary incontinence,
