Turkish Journal of Geriatrics 2006 , Vol 9, Issue 2
DETERMINATION OF THE FALLING RISKS OF ELDERLY LIVING AT HOME
Ege Üniversitesi Hemşirelik Yüksekokulu Halk Sağlığı Hemşireliği Anabilim Dalı İZMİR Aim: The research was planned with the purpose of constituting a functional form, which could be used by the public health nurses working at the primary health facilities, in determining the falling risks of elderly living in a home environment.

Material and Methods: It was conducted at the regions of Kızılay, Pınarbaşı, and Çamdibi No. II Village Clinics. The sampling of the research was constituted by 88 elderly, who were randomly selected from the Household Registry Cards of the concerned village clinics and accepted the home visits.The data were collected by using face-to-face interview and observation techniques between 20th April 2004 and 13th May 2004. The first form used in the research was directed towards collecting "Sociodemographic" data whereas the second form developed by Maree Johnson was directed towards examining the "Home Security".

Results: The mean age of study participants was 67.39 ±6.96. Of these elderly, 63.6% were female, 77.3% were married, and 70.5% had a stable income. Internal consistency coefficient of home security control list (Alpha) was 0.77 for the secure home conditions and 0.71 for the secure behaviors. The score that will be obtained from HSCL (Home Security Control List) is in the range of 0-140. It was detected that those elderly who obtained 99 points and below (26.1%) did not have secure home conditions and secure behaviors. Spearman's rank correlation was employed to detect the correlation between secure home and secure behavior and a positive relationship was found (Spearman rho: 0.582, p<0.05).

Conclusion: HSCL may be offered to the health staff as an important tool that can be used in the primary health facilities in protecting the health of elderly by taking the necessary measures, since it is facilitative in determining the falling risks of elderly, secure home conditions, and secure behaviors. Keywords : Elderly, Falling, Home security, Public health nursing