지역사회 거주노인의 낙상 발생현황 및 관련요인-고령화연구패널(KLoSA) 자료를 이용하여-

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify incidence, characteristics and risk factors for falls among community-dwelling older adults. Methods: This study was a secondary analysis using data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA). KLoSa is a national panel data set that is publicly available. Data collected from 3,511 community-dwelling older adults in 2006 and 2008 were analyzed using Chi-square, t-test, and multiple logistic regression. Results: The incidence of falls among community-dwelling older adults in Korea was 6.3%. There were significant differences, between elders who had fallen at least once, and elders who had no falls, in gender, living arrangements, region, health status, depression, experience of falling, fear of falling, number of diseases, number of medications, diabetes, and arthritis. Significant risk factors for falls among communitydwelling older adults were gender (female), living arrangements (living alone), experience of falling (yes), and number of medications (increase). Conclusion: The results indicate a need to assess risk factors to identify older adults with high risk for falling and to develop interventions to prevent falls in community-dwelling older adults.