The effect of fear of falling towards falls incidence among knee osteoarthritis patients in Malang, Indonesia: a cross-sectional study

Introduction: One serious effect of knee osteoarthritis (OA) is falling. Some predictors caused its vulnerability, one of which was fear of falling. However, few studies investigated how fear of falling leads to falling among the elderly. This study analyzed the fear of falling towards falls incidence among knee OA patients in Malang, and the results of this study might have a significant recommendation for the geriatric fall prevention system policy in Indonesia Methods: This is a cross-sectional study with 53 participants recruited using the purposive sampling technique from Puskesmas Rampal Celaket and Posyandu Lansia Samaan Malang from March-April 2021. Measurements were the Falls International Efficacy Scale (FES-I) to assess fear of falling, the John Hopkins Grading Scale to measure fall incidence, and the self-reported sociodemographic questionnaire. Data analysis used were the Chi-Square test, Independent T-test, and multivariate logistic regression to analyze significant predictors of falling. Results: From the bivariate analysis, it was found that the falling group tends to have a higher fear of falling than the non-falling group (34% and 1.9%, respectively). For BMI, the falling group tends to have a higher BMI than the non-falling group (27.2±2.8 and 25.7±3.9, respectively). While multivariate analysis showed that only fear of falling has a significant effect on falling incidence among the elderly (p<0.05), with participants having the risk 2.32 times (OR=2.32; 95%CI= 0.96-4.87) of falling compared to others. Conclusion: As there was a significant positive correlation between fear of falling and falling incidence among knee OA patients, thus it gives a significant recommendation for the Health Department to design a fall prevention program for the elderly, focusing on managing its predictor.