Spartanburg Fall Risk Assessment Tool: A simple three-step process

The purpose of this study was to develop a valid, reliable, and user-friendly fall risk assessment tool that is a sensitive predictor for falls in the acute care population. Fall risk factors were determined from extensive review of evidence-based studies available from a PubMed search. Previous falls, medications, and gait were found to be the top three risk factors for predicting a true risk for falls in multiple health care settings. The Spartanburg Fall Risk Assessment Tool (SFRAT) is unique from other fall risk assessment tools in combining intrinsic, patient-related factors, with a direct measure of the patient's functional status. Interrater reliability of the SFRAT using Cohen's κ was .9008, which reflects almost perfect agreement. The predictability analysis found the SFRAT to be 100% sensitive for falls (27/27) with no false negatives. Specificity was 28% (48/172) with 124 false positives. These false positives may actually reflect patients who were at true risk for fall but were prevented from falling due to effective interventions instituted by the staff providing their care. The SFRAT fall risk assessment is a simple, reliable tool easily incorporated by nurses into their direct care routine.