Abstract

Fall is a significant cause of mortality and morbidity among older adults yet information on these aspects are inadequate. The objective of this study was to depict the picture of elderly fall problem and also to explore the help-seeking behavior of the elderly fall patients which will ultimately help policy makers to address the elderly fall issue efficiently in order to achieve SDGs by 2030.

Bangladesh Health and Injury Survey 2016 (BHIS 2016) data was analyzed to calculate the mortality and morbidity rate due to fall among population of 60 years age and above. BHIS 2016 was a national level population based survey conducted among more than 3 00 000 population by CIPRB in collaboration with Director General of Health Services. The proportion of death caused by fall among all deaths and among all injury deaths in older population was 1.08% and 40% respectively. The age-standardized fall mortality rate was calculated as 43.8 per 1 00 000 per year in 2015. (95% CI 22.3 to 78.1) in 2015. Among the elderly population the fall related morbidity rate was calculated as 6.2% (95% CI 5.9 to 6.5) in 2015. Only 49.5% elderly fall victims received first aid after incurring fall injury of which only 1% were medically trained providers. Only 15.7% of fall victims received treatment from registered physician and 19.8% elderly fall patients attended health care facilities. Of the total fall patients 9% admitted in the hospital for proper treatment. Fall was identified as a major health problem and access to proper health care was found clearly inadequate. In addition to strong political commitment, strengthening of the fall prevention program is urgently needed to address the elderly fall effectively in Bangladesh.