Fall assessment for psychiatric patients

[withkafka]

Hello ?

I'm a RN and master's student from Korea, working at an acute psychiatric ward and wondering what kinds of fall assessment are currently used in the clinical setting. Is there any specific tool for psychiatric patients? I've read that Edmonson Psychiatric Fall Risk Assessment Tool(EPFRAT) and Wilson Sims Fall Risk Assessment Tool(WSFRAT) were designed for psych patients. Are those currently adopted and widely used in the hospital? 

In my work place(kinda hospital conglomerate, 2715 beds), Morse Fall Scale is used for all types of patients... I wonder if it's a proper way to assess fall risk for psych patients.

Any comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Wasapo]

I’m glad I stumbled across your post. I’m in my first 6 months working in an in-patient psychiatric hospital. As part of my new grad project I have chosen to focus on the same thing, psych specific fall assessments. I also landed on both the WSFRAT and EPFRAT. My current location uses the Schmid Fall Risk Assessment that takes into account mental status and medications. The problem with the other scales are that they require a lot more math. They are specific to the different types of medications so that will require education for using the scales. It’s a tough situation because we want simplicity that way we can keep the nurses using them but also specific enough to catch falls. Let me know what you ended up using.