44th ESPEN Congress, Vienna, Austria, 3 - 06 September 2022, pp.688-689
Rationale: Falls are a common public health problem in older adults regarding increased morbidity, mortality and healthcare costs. Determining the factors associated with falls is of utmost importance for detecting at-risk people. We present here a field study conducted to examine the prevalence of falls and the associated factors among community-dwelling older adults.
Methods: 203 older adults residing in the specified addresses in the Fatih district of Istanbul province were selected through a simple random sampling method. The demographics, fear of falling, falls, number of diseases and medications, presence of diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, geriatric syndromes, frailty, functional status and quality-of-life measures were evaluated, and a multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to determine the factors related to falls.
Results: The prevalence of falls was 28.5% [mean age: 75.4±7.3 (range: 61–101 years), 53.6% female], and a significant association was identified between falls and the number of diseases and medications, diabetes, chronic pain, frailty, activities of daily living (ADL), instrumental activities of daily living (IADL), and European quality-5 dimension (EQ-5D) score, dementia, geriatric depression scale-short form (GDS-SF) score and level of ambulation in univariate analyses (p=0.001, 0.030, 0.030, 0.010, 0.004, 0.040, 0.007, 0.003, 0.030 and 0.007, respectively). In the multivariate analysis, positive dementia (OR=3.66, 95% CI=1.40-9.53; p=0.010) and frailty screenings (OR =1.47, 95% CI=1.05-2.06; p=0.020) were identified as associates of falls.
Conclusion: Falls were independently associated with positive dementia and frailty screenings. These results will help develop specific and tailored precautions for at-risk groups to prevent the negative outcomes of falls.