Development and Delphi consensus validation of the Medication-Related Fall screening and scoring tool

Background: Falls are a significant public health problem and constitute a major cause of injuries and mortality. Risk factors for falls are multifactorial and include medication use.

Aim: To develop and investigate the content validity of the Medication-Related fall (MRF) screening and scoring tool.

Method: The MRF tool was developed from clinical practice guidelines addressing medication-related problems, and additional medications identified by specialist pharmacists across a region of the United Kingdom (Northern Ireland). Medication classes were categorised according to their 'potential to cause falls' as: high-risk (three points), moderate-risk (two points) or low-risk (one point). The overall medication-related falls risk for the patient was determined by summing the scores for all medications. The MRF was validated using Delphi consensus methodology, whereby three iterative rounds of surveys were conducted using SurveyMonkey^®. Twenty-two experts from 10 countries determined their agreement with the falls risk associated with each medication on a 5-point Likert scale. Only medications with at least 75% of respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing were retained in the next round.

Results: Consensus was reached for 19 medications/medication classes to be included in the final version of the MRF tool; ten were classified as high-risk, eight as moderate-risk and one as low-risk.

Conclusion: The MRF tool is simple and has the potential to be integrated into medicines optimisation to reduce falls risk and negative fall-related outcomes. The score from the MRF tool can be used as a clinical parameter to assess the need for medication review and clinical interventions.