Effectiveness of a Nursing Intervention regarding Knowledge about Falls Prevention in Elderly Affected by Such Events

Abstract

Introduction: Knowledge about falls prevention is essential in reducing incidence in the elderly; nursing intervention may be the way for achieving it.

Objective: To assess a Jean Watson’s model–based nursing intervention’s effectiveness in the level of knowledge about falls prevention in the elderly who have experienced it.

Methods: Quantitative and pre-experimental research with pre-test and post-test, contextualized in 37 family medical offices belonging to Dr. Rudesindo Antonio García del Rijo Polyclinic (Sancti Spíritus Province, Cuba), and carried out from 2018 to 2019. The universe was made up of 42 elderly people who had falls in the last year. Knowledge was measured with surveys validated by experts and piloting with Cronbach's alpha higher than 0.5. For the thematic and methodological axes of the intervention (based on the ten care factors of Jean Watson's theory), the bibliography on the subject was reviewed, as well as the identified knowledge needs were taken into account. The information was processed with absolute frequencies, percentages, mean, standard deviation, as well as with minimum and maximum value. The Wilcoxon’s signed rank test was used to test the hypothesis.

Results: Prior to the intervention, level four of knowledge was shown by 9.52% of the elderly. Once the intervention was applied, it amounted to 90.47%, with significance of -5.249 and P<0.05.

Conclusions: A nursing intervention based on Jean Watson’s model was effective in increasing the level of knowledge about falls prevention in the elderly who have experienced it.