This exploratory study identified the extrinsic risk factors for inpatient falls in hospital rooms both from incident reports and from nurse and nursing attendant interviews. An attributional theory of success and failure was adopted, and a proposed typology was used to elicit data, including 3 dimensions as follows: (a) patient room setting and design, (b) hospital equipment, and (c) manpower concerns.

This survey aimed to illustrate factors that contribute to nurses' fear when faced with a possible human-to-human avian flu pandemic and their willingness to care for patients with avian flu in Taiwan. The participants were nursing students with a lesser nursing credential who were currently enrolled in a bachelor degree program in a private university in southern Taiwan. Nearly 42% of the nurses did not think that, if there were an outbreak of avian flu, their working hospitals would have sufficient infection control measures and equipment to prevent nosocomial infection in their working environment. About 57% of the nurse participants indicated that they were willing to care for patients infected with avian influenza. Nurses' fear about an unknown infectious disease, such as the H5N1 influenza virus, could easily be heightened to levels above those occurring during the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in Taiwan.