A pilot investigation of the efficacy of falls risk assessment tools and prevention strategies in an elderly hip fracture population

Although the study demonstrated good inter-rater reliability of both tools the level of predictive accuracy was poor. Both tools were demonstrated to over predict the risk of patients falling. At face value it would appear preferable for a tool to over predict risk of falling rather than under predicting, however this must be viewed in the context of finite resources. It is recommended that further research is needed to manipulate the threshold level for risk of falling with both tools and to ascertain if the inclusion of extrinsic factors would improve their predictive accuracy.