Assessment of fall risk in elderly hypertensive patients from rural communities / 中华全科医师杂志

ABSTRACT

The fall risk was evaluated with Modified Falls Efficacy Scale (Chinese version) in 426 elderly hypertensive patients (hypertensive group) and 436 elderly people without hypertension (control group) from rural communities in Zhejiang Quzhou areas.The fall risk scores were compared between hypertensive group and control group ; and also between patients with history of falls and those without falls.The results showed that the average score was 8.62 ± 2.15 in hypertensive group and 9.35 ± 1.35 in control group (P ＜ 0.01).The average score was 6.94 ± 1.85 in hypertensive patients with history of falls (n =112) and 9.22 ± 1.42 in without history of falls (n =314) (P ＜0.01).Our study suggests that there is a higher fall risk in elderly hypertensive patients than in elderly people without hypertension; and fall risk assessment with Modified Falls Efficacy Scale (Chinese version) can be used for prediction of fall for the elderly people in rural community.