The effect of falls on quality of life in the elderly

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of falls on quality of life in the elderly. The study used a descriptive cross-sectional design. The purposive sampling method was used in this study. A total of 90 elderly patients, aged 65 years and over, who had fallen and presented for treatment at an orthopedic surgical and emergency unit at Al-Ramadi Teaching Hospital in Anbar, Iraq, were included in the study. Data were collected between January 2021 and June 2021 with face-to-face interviews. In the study, questionnaires including questions about the medical process they experienced after falling, in addition to their socio-demographic data and determining their quality of life were applied to the participants. The results were analyzed with the descriptive and inferential statistics method. According to the results of the study, while 58.9% of elderly participants had an acceptable level of assessment of quality of life in terms of mean and standard deviation (3.17 ± 0.473), 27.8% of the elderly had good level of quality of life. Low quality of life scores were determined in participants with advanced age, low education level, and low economic level. Among the participants, those who had fractures, those who had to be treated in hospital, and those who had an operation had lower quality of life scores. It was determined that the longer the hospital stay, the lower the quality of life scores of the participants. The quality of life was low for those who experienced permanent disability after a fall. Surprisingly, in the study, the quality of life of those who received rehabilitation services after falling was lower than those who did not. The quality of life of the participants with chronic disease was lower than those without, and the quality of life scores of the participants decreased as the number of drugs they used daily increased. Key Words: Falls, quality of life, elderly