title: Home-screen: a short scale to measure fall risk in the home.
abstract: Community nurses are often the health professionals with whom older Australians living at home have most contact. The home environment has been identified to have a number of hazards associated with falls in older people. The Home-screen scale was specifically designed as a nurse-administered instrument to identify environmental and behavioral risks that alert nurses to the need for action to reduce fall risks in the home. A 14-item scale was administered to 1,165 older people receiving community nursing services. Psychometric investigation confirmed a 10-item scale with construct validity and internal consistency (alpha = 0.86, n = 989), explaining 60% of the construct of home safety (safe home environment and safe home behaviors). In addition, differences in mean scores were found in clients able and unable to transfer independently (t = 4.5 [df = 323.1] p < 0.001 [Group 1: M = 82.14, SD = 15.56; Group 2: M = 75.54, SD = 20.83, n = 989]). Similarly, an association existed between clients with low scores on the Home-screen scale and the perceived need for home modification. A score of 74 on this scale has been identified as a critical point for potential client injury. The use of this scale, both as an initial screening instrument and as a monitoring tool for community nurses working with older people, is recommended.
authors.affiliation: Health at Home Research Center, Faculty of Health, University of Western Sydney, Macarthur, Campbelltown, Australia. m.johnson@uws.edu.au
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cusick
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chang
mesh_terms: D000061:Accidents, Home / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000368:Aged; D001315:Australia / Q000453:epidemiology; D003152:Community Health Nursing / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D004779:Environment Design / Q000592:standards*; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods*; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012449:Safety / Q000592:standards*; D014728:Veterans