Home fire safety beliefs and practices in homes of urban older adults

Development and psychometric assessment an instrument for investigating Women's attitude toward home safety

Background

Approximately half of the Iranian population are women, and they play a vital role in the home. The women’s attitude can play a critical role in the safety of homes. Best of our knowledge, there is not a valid and reliable instrument to measure their attitude toward home safety. So, the present study aimed to design a psychometrics tool to assess women’s attitudes toward home safety.

Methods

The researchers designed an instrument based on the home safety concept as the first instrument to measure housewives’ attitudes toward home safety. The developed instrument distributed among 686 women in Tabriz health centers. Content validity, confirmatory, and exploratory factor analysis were used to examine the construct validity, and Cronbach’s alpha and test-retest were employed to examine the reliability and reproducibility of the instrument.

Results

In the face validity section, the impact score of all items was determined to be above 1.5. In the content validity section, 4 items were excluded from the 39 questionnaire items due to low Content Validity Ratio (CVR). The mean CVR of all items was 0.842. By conducting exploratory factor analysis, it was found that the questionnaire has six dimensions. Three questions were removed from the study due to lack of connection with other items. Also, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the questionnaire is equal to 0.924, which indicates the appropriate reliability of the instrument.

Conclusions

This study aimed to develop a questionnaire to assess the safety attitudes of housewives toward home safety. It was found that the prepared tool has acceptable validity and reliability.

Evaluation of a Falls and Fire Safety Program for Community-Dwelling Older Adults

Remembering When™ (RW) is a falls and fire prevention program delivered by fire service personnel and homecare organizations to help older adults live safely at home for as long as possible. This study evaluated changes in falls prevention and fire safety behaviors and perceptions and social support associated with falls and residential fires among older adults following delivery of the RW program by fire service personnel. In a convenience sample of adults 65 + years residing in five Iowa communities, 70 received the RW program during a home visit and 75 received the RW program in a group presentation followed by a home visit. Baseline and follow-up telephone interviews were conducted to assess changes in falls and fire safety behaviors, perceptions and social support. Changes were assessed using McNemar's exact test and paired sample t-tests. To control for dependence of 26 households with two participants, one participant was randomly selected and included in the analysis (n = 119). The RW program improved falls and residential fire prevention behaviors among older adults. Perceived efficacy to prevent falls increased from baseline (p = 0.047). Perceived susceptibility (p = 0.021) and control of fires (p = 0.000) increased while perceived severity (p = 0.025) and fear of residential fires (p = 0.019) decreased when compared to baseline. The proportion of participants reporting discussing falls with friends and family increased (p < 0.001), and more participants reported discussing fire prevention with healthcare professionals (p = 0.039). Fire service personnel can be effective deliverers of falls prevention information to older adults.

40 years of research studies published in Geriatric Nursing

Research studies published in the 40 volumes and associated issues of Geriatric Nursing were examined to identify the trends and growth of geriatric nursing as a specialty. Seven hundred and fifty three research studies and literature reviews were abstracted from 238 issues of the journal and characterized by the purpose of the study, design, study population/sample and setting, and study results. In forty years, Geriatric Nursing served and continues to serve as an important dissemination vehicle for geriatric nursing research, benefitting both practitioners and older adults.

Safety of older people at home: An integrative literature review

AIM

The aim of this review was to examine the relevant health literature, to describe safety in the homes of older and older people's perceptions and understanding of their safety at home based on current literature.

BACKGROUND

Safety is a multifaceted, basic need of older people living at home. Many studies are hospital focused and few focus on safety at home. Research on the safety of older people at home appears to be under-researched.

METHODS

MEDLINE, CINAHL, Scopus and Web of Science databases from the earliest to August 2017 were investigated. The integrative literature review was conducted in December 2017. The full text of the remaining n = 93 papers was then screened for relevance by inclusion and exclusion criteria which reduced the number by 59 to n = 34.

RESULTS

Four dimensions of safety at home were discovered, namely physical, social, emotional and mental, and cognitive safety. Safety dimensions had both positive and negative components. Older people's main wish was to be able to live in their own home for as long as possible. Their perceptions of safety at home was categorised as active living, coping at home, managed living and the knowledge of the existence of disease.

CONCLUSIONS

The safety of older people at home is a worldwide concern. Identification of safety issues can assist in developing measures to help people stay at home for longer as they age. The management of this would need to take account of all four dimensions of safety, in ways that promote ageing at home.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

Learning, understanding and developing new strategies about safety affect everyone who visits the home of older people, and stakeholders have an important role to identify safety risks.

Prevalence and risk factors associated with non-traffic related injury in the older population in Ghana: Wave 2 of the WHO Study on Global AGEing and adult health (SAGE)

Injuries are a significant cause of hospitalization in the older population, leading to a decline in physical activity and greater dependence on others. Compared to traffic related injury, relatively fewer studies have been conducted on non-traffic related injury in the older population in Ghana. This analysis provides a nationwide baseline prevalence and associated factors of non-traffic related injuries among older adults in Ghana. Data from the 2014–2015 nationally representative World Health Organization Study on global AGEing and adult health (SAGE) Ghana Wave 2 was used. A final sample of 3461 older adults living in 2827 households was used in the statistical modelling. Predictors of injury were examined using both single-level and multilevel binary logistic regression models. The prevalence of non-traffic related injury found in this study was 3.74%. The odds of being injured decreased among females (OR = 0.66, 95% CI: 0.46, 0.95) compared to their male counterparts and those who rated their heath state as moderate (OR = 0.59, 95% CI: 0.38, 0.94). Depression was the only risk factor identified in the multivariable model (OR = 2.55, 95%CI: 1.38, 4.71). The study did not observe significant residual household-level variation in injury status. The role of depression as a risk factor suggests that interventions that aim to reduce non-traffic related injury in older adults should consider improving mental health.

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Sex, self-reported health and depression predicted non-traffic related injury

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Depression increases the odds of non-traffic related injury in older adults

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Interventions that improve mental health might have potential benefits