Abstract:
Low of falls efficacy is common and could potentially cause daily activity restriction and hypertension uncontrol amonghypertensive older adults. The objective of this descriptive correlation research aimed at to study falls efficacy and factors related to falls efficacy among older adults with hypertension. The simple random sampling technique was used to identify the sample of 158 older adults with hypertension who visited Ban Wang Chan subdistrict health promoting hospital in Rayong province. The demographic questionnaire, Thai Geriatric Depression Scale [TGDS-15], Questionnaires of Perceived health status, Charlson comorbidity index [CCI], Perceived orthostatic hypotension, Perceived visual ability, Perceived balance ability, Chula ADL index [CAI], and the Thai modified falls efficacy scale [TMFES] (Revised edition) were the research instruments. According to the data analysis, the majority of the sample had a high level of falls efficacy (x = 3.51, SD = 0.53), the results of the Spearman rank order and the point-biserial correlation coefficient analysis revealed that factors had moderate negatively correlation with falls efficacy among hypertensive older adults at a level of .01 included perceived orthostatic hypotension and depression (rs= -.464,p< .001; rs= -.359,p < .001 respectively). Factors having moderate positively correlation with falls efficacy among older adults at level of .01 included perceived balance ability, chula ADL index, and perceived visual ability (rs= .462,p< .001; rs = .383,p< .001; rs= .333,p< .001 respectively), having low negatively correlation with falls efficacy among older adults included age, falls experience and dizziness (rs= -.175,p = .014; rs=-.169,p= .017; rbp=-.137,p= .043 respectively). However, perceived health status, gender, disease comorbidityand antihypertensive drug groups were not statistically significant in relation to falls efficacy among older adults with hypertension at level of .05. (rs = .096,p=114; rbp = -.073,p= .360; rs = -.066,p= .206; rs = .044,p= .291 respectively). The findings recommend that healthcare providers should recognize falls efficacy among older adults with hypertension, especially persons who have older age, previous fall experience, perceived orthostatic hypotension, impaired perceived visual and balance, inability daily routines, and depression. Providers might apply these results as the basic knowledge for developing clinical nursing practice guidelines or nursing interventions to promote falls efficacy among this group.