New Study Shows Impact Of Over-The-Door Alarms –Health Design Reports on Findings at VA Mental Health Units
EVIDENCE BASED DESIGN
Ligature resistance has been a focus of CMS and accrediting organizations for the past several years, but questions remain as to how far we go and where the real risks lie.
Here is what we learned in this study:
Nearly half (46%) of the suicides or attempts involved hanging, consistent with other data about the prevalence of hanging. In this study, this included 6 deaths. That’s 3.3%. The next most frequent method of suicide was strangulation with nearly a quarter (23.7%) of the recorded events, and the third most frequent, at 19.6%, was cutting – hanging was twice the number of the next method.
Of the hanging events, nearly three quarters (71.0%) used doors as the anchor point. This accounted for 4 of the 6 door-related deaths. According to the chart in the paper, the next most cited anchor point was the shower, but this was less than 7% of the time. Think about this in context 71% to 7% between the first and second most common anchor points.
Of those events where the patient was using a door, 44 of the attempts, more than a third (34.6%), involved an Over-The-Door (OTD) alarm, and none of those events included a death, suggesting the alarm helped prevent 44 deaths. Of the 6 deaths, 4 of which used the corridor doors to the bedroom, none happened on units with the door alarms.
Even knowing the alarm was there was a deterrent. Importantly, from a built environment perspective, a lack of visibility was also cited as a root cause for hanging attempts.
Can we say the results are definitive?
Correlation does not prove causation, so we can’t “prove” that OTD alarms prevented death by hanging on corridor doors.
But, it does pass the sniff test, and two attempts didn’t happen because the patients knew the alarm might alert staff, this also suggests there is a benefit to the alarms.
What’s the takeaway?
This takeaway is pretty simple: In mental health units where the risk of patients committing suicide is high, OTD alarms may help save lives.
However, as part of a system, the OTD acts as another layer of defense in preventing use of a common anchor point, the door. And on a final note, even though we all hear about alarm fatigue in ICUs and med-surg units, this is a different type of setting that is not plagued by the same number of alarms and alerts.Based on data, the VA has now made this a standard. This is really evidence-based design.
To read the full article reported by
Health Design.org, click
here.
If you are in crisis or are experiencing difficult or suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273 TALK (8255).
The Door SwitchTM wants to continue the fight for more awareness and provide additional resources to dispel the myths about mental health issues and solutions for safety issues. We also continue to strive to provide a product that keeps the hospital environment safe. We continue to be committed to better practices and procedures in the mental health community. For information concerning our safety product, please click here.
Sincerely,
The Door SwitchTM
