Comparison of three fall risk assessment tools in older hospitalized patients in Turkey: analysis of sensitivity and specificity

Background As a result of falls, older patients experience injury and loss of function, and their length of hospital stay and care costs increase. Aim This study was conducted to determine fall risks and compare the sensitivity and specificity of three fall risk assessment tools. Methods Older patients’ fall risk levels were determined according to the Itaki, Hendrich-II, and Morse tools within 2 h following their admission to the wards. A methodological design was used in the study, which included 388 hospitalized elderly patients. The mean age of the patients was 72.29 ± 5.6 years, and 57.7% were female. Results According to the ROC curve values of Sensitivity and 1-Specificity, the cut-off points for the Hendrich-II, Itaki, and Morse fall tools were accepted as 27.5, 8.5, and 6.5, respectively. According to the analysis results, the ratios of the areas under the ROC curve for the Itaki, Morse, and Hendrich-II fall tools were 0.794, 0.773, and 0.724, respectively, which were found to be statistically significant for all three tools (p ≤ 0.001). Conclusions The Itaki Fall Risk Tool was found to be the most sensitive one among the three instruments in assessing the fall risk of older hospitalized patients. The Itaki Fall Risk Tool was followed by the Morse and Hendrich-II tools, respectively, in terms of sensitivity.