•  
  •  
 

Nursing & Health Sciences Research Journal

Abstract

Introduction: A recent review revealed falls were the second most frequent cause of traumatic injuries during pregnancy. Standard risk assessment tools, such as the Morse Fall Scale (MFS), may not capture the unique risk factors of obstetrical patients. The Obstetric Fall Risk Assessment System (OFRAS) is specific to obstetrical patients. However, evidence of the OFRAS's reliability/validity was not found.

Purpose: To test the reliability and validity of a modified version of the OFRAS.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional pilot study. The target population was nurses within perinatal services units. Data collection consisted of: Part 1 - conducting paired fall risk assessments on actual patients using the MFS and OFRAS-M, including collection of patient demographics, and Part 2 – completion of two scenario-based OFRAS-M assessments. Data analysis included tests for internal consistency, external consistency/interrater reliability, convergent validity (CV), and evaluation of construct validity using exploratory factor analysis (EFA).

Results: Nurses completed 104 OFRAS-M/MFS paired assessments, and 81 and 80 OFRAS-M completions for the low-risk and high-risk scenarios, respectively. Internal consistency/stability of the OFRAS-M was acceptable (Cronbach’s alpha = .764). Fleiss kappa analysis suggested moderate external consistency (k = .55, p < .001; k = .484, p < .001). Pearson's correlation coefficient (r = .649, p < .001) suggested CV. The EFA showed OFRAS-M items loaded onto two factors.

Discussion: The results suggest the OFRAS-M validly and reliably measures fall risk in obstetrical patients. However, testing in a larger sample with confirmatory factor analysis is needed to further validate our results.

Download

Included in

Nursing Commons

Share

COinS