Cultural and linguistic adaptation and validation of the Morse Fall Scale

Background: Patients’ falls are the most commonly reported safety incident in hospitals. Falls have clear consequences on the patient, family and health professionals. Prevention interventions should be prescribed based on each patient’s fall risk assessment. This assessment may be performed using scales such as the Morse Fall Scale (MFS). Despite being used in several hospitals, this scale was never formally validated until now. Objectives: To assess the degree of reproducibility of the MFS in hospital settings and examine its validity through correlations with other measuring instruments. Methodology: The study was conducted in two hospitals in the Lisbon area using a sample composed of 120 nurses, who applied the MFS to 200 patients. Each patient was assessed three times with the MFS by three different nurses. A total of 600 assessments were performed. Results: The Portuguese version is semantically and culturally equivalent to the original, with good reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.838 and interobserver agreement between 0.615 and 0.964, assessed using the mean kappa coefficient) and satisfactory convergent validity. Conclusion: The Portuguese version is recommended for use in hospital context.