Prevalence of falls among mothers in Saudi Arabia: A cross-sectional study

Research Objectives: To identify the prevalence of falling, the frequency of falls, and consequent injuries among mothers in Saudi Arabia.

Design: Cross-sectional study

Setting: Online questionnaire for general community

Participants: Mothers (18-65 years old), able to read and understand Arabic, and have delivered a baby. A convenience sample of 1034 mothers were voluntarily recruited for this study.

Interventions: Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures: A self-administered online questionnaire including sociodemographic data and questions related to the history of falls during the past 12-month period, number of falls, and consequent injuries was disseminated through social media in Saudi Arabia.

Results: A total of 1034 mothers (median age: 31-35 years) responded to the survey. The 1-year prevalence of falling among mothers was 13.4% (n = 139) and 52.5% (n = 73) of faller mothers experienced more than one fall. Additionally, 25.4% (n = 35) of faller mothers had a fall incident during pregnancy. The consequences of falls were 47.2% (n = 51) of faller mothers had felt pain, 11.1% (n = 12) had muscle and ligament injury, and 2.8% (n = 3) had fracture. There were no significant differences between fallers and non-fallers mothers on all sociodemographic and clinical factors and no relationship between falls and sociodemographic and clinical factors p > 0.05.

Conclusions: In summary, 13.4% of mothers in Saudi Arabia had experienced one or more falls in the past 12 months. This increase in the prevalence of falls among young and middle-aged women supports the idea that falls are not only an issue for elderly population, and that fall prevention strategies for this age range are needed.

Author(s) Disclosures: The authors declare that they have no financial or other conflict of interest.