RESUMO
The results of a retrospective study of fall incidence during a 1-year period in a psychiatric hospital in Singapore are reported, involving 309 patients who fell one or more times during their stay. The profile of inpatients involved in falls was identified. Data were derived from standard incident forms completed whenever patients had a fall. A total of 348 falls were identified for the 1-year period. Results revealed higher fall rates in younger male epileptic patients; elderly female patients, age 70 and older with depression or dementia; individuals with concomitant medical conditions; and patients taking three types of medication. The majority of falls occurred when the activity level was high in the ward. Young epileptic patients and elderly depressed patients were prone to repeated falls. These results have the potential to assist in identifying patients at high risk and in designing and implementing strategies to prevent such incidents.
Assuntos
Acidentes por Quedas/estatística & dados numéricos , Hospitais Psiquiátricos , Hospitais Estaduais , Transtornos Mentais/reabilitação , Acidentes por Quedas/prevenção & controle , Adulto , Distribuição por Idade , Idoso , Idoso de 80 Anos ou mais , Transtorno Depressivo Maior/psicologia , Epilepsia/psicologia , Feminino , Hospitalização , Humanos , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Estudos Retrospectivos , Distribuição por Sexo , Singapura/epidemiologia , Ferimentos e Lesões/epidemiologiaRESUMO
The authors measure the efficacy of three methods for predicting the time to infection for susceptible individuals in a population undergoing an HIV epidemic. The methods differ in whether they require detailed information of the contact network and whether they require knowledge of the initial source of infection. Efficacy is evaluated using simulations for 20 different contact patterns. Only the risk score that uses both kinds of information accounts for more than 15 per cent of individual variability. The efficacy of this score ranges from 10 per cent in very unstructured populations to 60 per cent for spatially localized contact networks. This improved performance may be explained by the larger fraction of the total variability not due to the disease dynamics. When all variables are dichotomized, the two poorer methods produce odds ratios between 1.4 and 2.3. The odds ratio for the risk score with full information ranges from 2.5 to 17. Risk assessment protocols and intervention programmes are encouraged to assess contact patterns and detect sources of infection.
