Falls of Hospitalized Children : Pediatric Nurse's Judgement of Filing an Incident Report

This study aimed to clarify what incidents of falling pediatric nurses deem fit to file incident reports for. Participants were 145 nurses in 11 general hospitals with pediatric wards. Most of the nurses reported a need to file incident reports when the children are treated or examined for a fall injury. Respondents stated that there is a greater need to file reports for “falls from cribs” rather than “falls while walking.” The average rate of incident reports filed significantly differed between “falls while walking” (60.4%) and “falls from cribs” (82.7%). Respondents noted a greater need to file reports when children fell while they were with nurses rather than their parents. Nurses did not think that all falls should be reported. They judged the need to file incident reports by the degree of injury, situation of fall, or cause of fall