الفهرس 
Epidemiology of FallsOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Elderly falls are considered as one of the most common and serious public health problems, as they are common causes of morbidity and mortality, loss of independence, and poor quality of life.
Health education intervention programs for fall prevention improves knowledge, attitude, preventive behavior and number of falls among elderly. It can reduce the risk of their recurrent falls.
The current study objectives include assessing risk of falling, and assessing home safety against falls among a group of elderly residents in Geriatric homes in Cairo, Egypt. Also the present study aimed to explore the extent of falls` knowledge and evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention education program delivered to the elderly participants.
The current study was implemented upon 120 elderly participants in 7 geriatric homes in different districts in Cairo.
The questionnaire was interview one. It included sociodemographic, general geriatric health, falls` risk assessment, geriatric home safety, falls` knowledge and falls` history sections.The general geriatric health of participants was assessed by geriatric health questionnaire. Elderly participants falls` risk was assessed by CDC falls` risk self-assessment tool.
Geriatric homes` safety against falls was evaluated by the CDC home fall prevention checklist for older adults.
Elderly participants falls` risk awareness was assessed by falls` risk awareness questionnaire (FRAQ), other questions about falls` knowledge were added by the researcher.
The knowledge questionnaire included questions about falls` general information, falls` risk factors (health risk Factors, medication and environmental risk factors of falls), complications and prevention.
Educational Intervention was provided as a series of power point presentation lectures to the elderly in the selected geriatric homes about falls related topics such as: Definition, Risk Factors, Consequences, and Susceptible Geriatrics to falls, Falls Prevention and Safe Geriatric Home Environment. Posters and pamphlets about important points of falls prevention were disseminated at the end of the education intervention.Both descriptive and inferential statistics were done using SPSS program version 20. Descriptive statistics used were frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation. Inferential statistics used include Student paired T, McNemar test, X2 test, correlation and regression analysis
More than two thirds of elderly participants were at risk of falling (69.2%) according to the CDC falls` risk assessment tool used in the study.
Risky geriatric home environment was considered among (27.5 %) of participants according to the selected CDC home safety prevention tool. The most reported home hazards of falls were slippery bathroom floor and broken steps in stairs, where (60.8%) and (40%) of elderly participants mentioned them respectively.
There was statistical significant improvement in the knowledge scores of elderly participants about different falls` topics including falls` general information risk factors, complication and prevention in the posttest and follow up (6 months posttest) after implementation of the education intervention in comparison with the pretest scores (P=0.00).Elderly participants who experienced falling decreased from (35.8%) in the pre-test to (27.4 %) in the 6 months post-test after the education intervention. Also the mean no of falls among faller` participants decreased from (2±1.6) to (1.4± 0.7) with statistical significant difference (P=0.05).
Further health education sessions are recommended to fill the considerable gap of knowledge as regards falls` risk factors, falls risk assessment, prevention and environmental home safety against falls. They should be conducted in geriatric homes, PHC centers and to target elderly, their caregivers and geriatric health care professionals.