Falls in the non-institutionalized elderly: a systematic literature review

This systematic literature review aimed to identify the occurrence of falls in elderly living in the community. On CAPES website, a search was conducted on the following databases: Academic Search (EBSCO), SciELO, and Science Direct (ELSEVIER). An additional search, on the EFDEPORTES website, was performed on the Lecturas Educación Física y Deportes database. Using the chosen descriptors, 247 articles published from 2000 to 2011 were identified. A total of 230 articles were excluded as they did not meet all the inclusion criteria. Hence, 17 articles were included in the study, 12 of which were cross-sectional studies, two prospective studies, two population studies, and one retrospective study. The whole sample involved in the studies consisted of 114,911 subjects with an average age of 70 years, distributed across seven countries: Brazil, United States, Spain, Italy, Nigeria, Turkey and China. The occurrence of falls ranged between 15.9% and 56.3%, with a median of 28.50%. Although presenting variation, the occurrence of falls in elderly living in the community is still high.

本系统综述旨在明确社区居住老年人的跌倒发生情况。研究在巴西高等教育人员发展协调局（CAPES）官网开展检索，覆盖以下数据库：学术搜索（Academic Search，EBSCO）、SciELO及Science Direct（ELSEVIER）；另在EFDEPORTES官网，针对Lecturas Educación Física y Deportes数据库进行了补充检索。通过选定的检索词，共检索得到2000年至2011年发表的文献247篇。其中230篇因未完全符合纳入标准被排除，最终纳入本系统综述的文献共17篇，包括12篇横断面研究（cross-sectional studies）、2篇前瞻性研究（prospective studies）、2篇人群研究（population studies）及1篇回顾性研究（retrospective study）。纳入本次系统综述的各项研究的总样本量为114911名受试者，平均年龄70岁，研究覆盖巴西、美国、西班牙、意大利、尼日利亚、土耳其及中国共7个国家。受试者的跌倒发生率介于15.9%至56.3%之间，中位数为28.50%。尽管各项研究结果存在一定异质性，但社区居住老年人的跌倒发生率仍处于较高水平。