Panus PC, Covert KL, Odle BL, Karpen SC, Walls ZF, Hall CD. Comparison of pharmacists' scoring of fall risk to other fall risk assessments.
J Am Pharm Assoc (2003) 2021;
62:505-511.e1. [PMID:
34924311 DOI:
10.1016/j.japh.2021.11.006]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/23/2020] [Revised: 11/01/2021] [Accepted: 11/03/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVES
Given their professional education and participation within the health care system, pharmacists are ideal candidates to assess drug-associated fall risk for patients. The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether pharmacists can quantitatively differentiate individuals who reported falling within the previous year (fallers) from those who do not (nonfallers), and to compare the pharmacists' evaluation with 2 recently published fall risk assessments.
DESIGN
Cross-sectional design of pharmacists' assessments of fall risk.
SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS
This is a cross-sectional study where 6 licensed pharmacists evaluated patient records from Wave 1 of the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project dataset using generic drug list (drug counts), age, and body mass index to generate a Pharmacist Risk Score (PRS) based on these variables. Pharmacists were allowed to use drug information resources and were provided with a simple 5-point scale to assist them in scoring patients.
OUTCOME MEASURES
The main outcome measure of this study was a comparison of the following fall risk assessments (PRS, drug counts, Medication-Based Index of Physical Function, Quantitative Drug Index, and Timed Up and Go [TUG]) capacity to differentiate fallers from nonfallers.
RESULTS
Each fall risk assessment was highly correlated (P < 0.001) with the number of reported falls. Drug-associated fall risk assessments were highly correlated (P < 0.001) with each other, but not with TUG. Each fall risk assessment differentiated fallers from nonfallers based on logistic regression (P ≤ 0.001). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was significant (P ≤ 0.002) for each assessment. The comparison of ROC area under the curve for the fall risk assessments found no significant difference between the PRS and other assessments.
CONCLUSION
Fall risk assessment by pharmacists was comparable with other fall risk assessments in distinguishing fallers from nonfallers.
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