CARE HOME-CUSHION
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Barriers and facilitators to and impact of the use of lifting cushions in care homes (CH-CUSHION)
IRAS ID
315861
Contact name
Fiona Cowdell
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Birmingham City University
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Care home residents are at significant risk of falling, with approximately 1.5 falls per person per year recorded. Falls have a substantial impact on morbidity, quality of life and mortality. Falls are a common reason for emergency calls to be made often resulting in residents attending emergency departments. Between 4 and 12 requests for ambulances are made from each care home per month across NHS Birmingham and Solihull Clinical Commissioning Group (hereafter “BSol”) in relation to resident falls.
Prevention is gold standard care however it is important to develop best practice for when a fall does occur. Little attention has been given to falls management in existing literature. Care home staff are the first to respond to resident falls. Most have a no-lifting policy and the expected response is to call an ambulance. To address this BSol are implementing use of the established iStumble risk assessment app. and the Manga Elk lifting cushion. Training and implementation of these interventions is outwith this research study. Our role is to evaluate the impact of the intervention in practice.
We will conduct a mixed methods study. We will collect anonymised quantitative data about response to resident falls using a bespoke data collection proforma (appendix 1)and qualitative data through interviews (appendix 2) with staff about their experiences of using the interventions. Using these approaches, we will assess i) the impact falls assessment and using lifting cushions in care home practice, ii) identify barriers and facilitators to effective use and iii) if appropriate in light of i & ii, provide knowledge to inform development of interventions to support best practice. If effective, this could minimise unwarranted ambulance call outs to fallen care homes residents.REC name
Social Care REC
REC reference
22/IEC08/0018
Date of REC Opinion
13 Jul 2022
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion