Use of a perceived efficacy tool to evaluate the FallTIPS program

Background/objectives: To assess nurses' opinions of the efficacy of using the FallTIPS (Tailoring Interventions for Patient Safety) fall prevention program.

Design: Survey research.

Setting: Seven adult acute-care hospitals in 2 hospital centers located in Boston and NYC.

Participants: A total of 298 medical-surgical nurses on 14 randomly selected units.

Intervention: Three-step FallTIPS fall prevention program that had been in use as a clinical program for a minimum of 2 years in each hospital.

Measurements: Fall Prevention Efficiency Scale (FPES), range 13-52; four-factorilly derived subscales: valued, efficiency, balances out and inefficiency; and 13 psychometrically validated individual items.

Results: Nurses perceived the FallTIPS fall prevention program to be efficacious. The FPES mean score of 38.55 (SD = 5.05) and median of 39 were well above the lowest possible score of 13 and scale midpoint of 32.5. Most nurses (N = 270, 90.6%) scored above 33. There were no differences in FPES scores between nurses who had only used FallTIPS and nurses who had previously used a different fall prevention program.

Conclusion: The nurses who used FallTIPS perceived that efficiencies in patient care compensated for the time spent on FallTIPS. Nurses valued the program and findings confirmed the importance of patient and family engagement with staff in the fall prevention process. Regardless of the fall prevention program used, organizations should examine staff perceptions of their fall prevention program because programs that are not perceived as being useful, efficient, and valuable will lead to nonadherence over time and then will not reduce falls and injuries. The recently developed FPES used in this study is a brief tool available for organizations to assess nurses' perceptions of the efficacy of their fall prevention program. Additional FPES research is needed with larger and more diverse samples.