Abstract / Summary
Objectives: Falls among community-dwelling older adults are a global public health concern. Although falls prevention care relies on collaboration between medical and allied health professionals, older adults experiences and perspectives of interprofessional care remain underexplored. This research therefore explored the perspectives and experiences of primary falls prevention care, in order to identify what care is occurring in practice, where preventative opportunities may be missed and how older adults would prefer falls-prevention care to be delivered. Design: Qualitative exploratory study with a pragmatic orientation and utilising focus groups for data collection. Data was analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, with themes developed iteratively and subsequently interpreted through the lens of the Socioecological Model to develop a consumer informed socioecological framework for community falls prevention care. Setting: Three metropolitan (Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane) and two regional centres (Woodend, Wagga Wagga) in Australia. Participants: Thirty-six older adults participated across five focus groups. Results: Four themes were identified: knowledge of allied health and falls prevention, access to care, co-ordination of care, and when and how to provide care. Each theme reflected interacting influences across socioecological levels, demonstrating the complexity of older adults engagement in falls prevention. Conclusions: Despite strong support for preventative care, participants experiences were frequently consumer-driven, reactive and fragmented. Limited knowledge of falls and allied health, unclear access pathways, and inadequate coordination of care, shaped by organisational and policy contexts, were identified as key barriers. System-level reform that embeds falls prevention and allied health within routine care and aligns funding, coordination mechanisms and public health strategies to deliver equitable, sustainable prevention are required.