Experience of fall

Background: Community-dwelling older adults' falls represent a significant public health problem, and prevention is an important step to reducing healthcare costs and improving older adult's quality of life. According to Kochera (2002), 78% of all injuries that occurred from elderly falls happened in the community. Despite the fact that community-dwelling older adults have a higher risk for falls, there is less focus on fall prevention for this group. With the shift in the models of healthcare delivery from institutional to community settings; it is imperative that clinicians begin to understand fall prevention from the views of community-dwelling older adults. This project explored the perspectives of fall experience from five community-dwelling older adults to gain in-depth understanding of their views and experiences. Methods: This qualitative descriptive project utilized face-to-face semi-structured interview with probes to explore the views of five community-dwelling older adults who have experienced a fall within the last 12 months. A six-phase process of thematic analysis was used to guide data analysis and generation. Results: 31 codes that were collated into seven themes described participants' perceived etiology of falls and the implication for perceived quality of life following their fall experiences. Strength and Limitations: This project provides additional information that can be shared with clinicians in community settings to continue the dialogue and strengthen fall prevention and reduction strategies for community-dwelling older adults, finding should be interpreted in light of the small sample size. Significance and Implications: The study confirmed some existing evidence on the etiologies of community-dwelling older adult's falls and perceived quality of life about their experience of falls. It also offers new information about community-dwelling older adult's perception of the causes of their falls along with their perceived quality of life.