Abstract
Despite substantial evidence about the benefits of fall prevention interventions, they have not been
well incorporated into primary care practice. Raising community awareness and attitude toward fall prevention
program is one of the effective strategies to translate the program into practice. The elderly patients need to be aware of the potentially deteriorating effects of their chronic diseases and falling, and
are prepared to manage to reduce fall risk. Educating the elderly and their family on fall prevention by
using audiovisual media and involving community volunteers can be key to successful intervention. This
embedded mixed methods study aimed to compare attitudes and awareness on fall prevention among
community-dwelling elderly (n =144) and their family (n = 100) before and after an educational program
that employed audiovisual media and involved community volunteers. A pre-test/post-test only design,
with structured questionnaires measuring attitudes and awareness on fall prevention, was used for the
quantitative arm. Focus groups were used to interview three groups (ntotal = 38: n1 = 8, n2 = 15, n3 = 15), and
these interviews generated narratives regarding the educational program for the qualitative arm. Quantitative
results showed that the attitudes and awareness scores were statistically higher after the educational
program. Statistically significant areas included exercise and fall prevention. In summary, educating
the elderly and their family by using audiovisual media and involving community volunteers was
found to be one of the important steps toward translating fall prevention guideline to Thai’s community
successfully.
