DISCUSSION
In fall prevention strategies for hospitalized patients, it is important to use assessment tools that are specific to inpatint type. It is also important to use clinical judgment when intepreting fall risk assessment scores ( Corleyet al., 2014). Although the Hendrich II is not specific to psychiatric population, the sensitivity of the Hendrich II and WSFRAT tools was equal (i.e., 100%) when used to determine patient high-risk and low-risk fall assessment. Both the Hendrich II and WSFRAT performed with reasonable specificty. The discrepancies between the NPV and PPV observed in the current study were similar to those observed in previous research ( Chapmanet al., 2011).
The WSFRAT's additional RN clinical judgmenr was helpful in identifying patients at high risk for falling who oherwise may have been considered low risk. Because the WSFRAT requires a more comprehensive psychiatiac assessment (i.c., psychotropic medications and detoxificationprotocols), only 11.9% of the low-risk category scorcs were also considered by RN clinical judgment as high fall risk. The Hendrich II, which does not include the more comprehensivepsychiatric scoring, had a higher vari ance (34%) between the number of low-risk category assessments and the WSFRAT RN clinical judgment of yes when applied. This finding could be interpreted as a 34% missed opportunity for implementing additional fall risk interventiong for the Hendrich II versus 11.9% for the WSFRAT.
As a result of the current research and previous research on the WSFRAT (and given the equal sensitivity of both fall risk tools and that the WSFRAT is more oriented to psychiatric inpatients ), the rssearchers of the current article concluded that although either fall risk assessment tool could be used, the WSFRAT allowed a more comprehensive assessment. In addition, the WSFRAT RN clinical judgment field can facilitate implementaton of additional fall prevention interventions by nurses regardless of a particular patient at a particular time point.
LIMITATIONS
Aichough variance in the time taken to complete both tools was not a focus of the current study, the researchers did not report notable differences between the two tools. Nursing time required to conduct fall risk assessments efficiently should be considered, given inpatient populations and overall requirements of nurses (Corley et al., 2014).
As the psychiatric inpatients who participated in this study had two fall assessments completed per study protocol at each fall screening time point, this frequency of assessment may have resulted in implementation of additional fall prevention strategies and, consequcntly, fewer falls. However, the study fall rate was similar to the fall rate on the psychiatric unit prior to the initiation of the research.
Additional limitations of the current pilot study were the small sample and the inability to generalize these results to nonpsychiatric and/or nonrural populations. Further research is warranted on best-practice fall risk assessment tools in the psychiatric inpatient setting using a larger sample.
IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING PRACTICE
In fall prevention strategies for hospitalized patients, it is important to use assessment tools that are specific to the inpatient type. It is also important to use clinical judgment when interpretinf fall risk assessment scores. Additional research is warrantrd on best practice fall risk assessment tools for psychiatric patient populations.
CONCLUSION
Although the Hendrich II is not specific for the psychiatric population, the sensitivity of the Hendrich II and WSFRAT tools was equal (i.e., 100%) when used to determine patient high-risk and low-risk fall assessment. Both the Hendrich II and WSFRAT performed with reasonable specificity. The discrepancies between the NPV and the PPV observed in the current study were similar to those observed in previous research.