Evaluation of bath grab bar placement for older adults

Abstract

The patterns of use, perceived usefulness and perceived safety of five different configurations of bathtub grab bars were evaluated by 103 community-living seniors in Canada. Current bathing activities, fall history, sociodemographic characteristics, balance measures as well as details about the home bathing environment were recorded. Participants were then videotaped as they got into, sat down, got up and exited a bath tub using each of the five configurations. The videotapes were used to determine the pattern of grab bar use for each and participants ranked each for perceived function and safety. The five configurations corresponded to standards published by the Canadian Standards Association, the US Uniform Accessibility Standards, a modification of the Ontario Building code (OBC, a Canadian provincial code), a common configuration and a composite configuration. Although most respondents did not have bathtub grab bars installed in their home, those with home bars reported that they used the bars on a regular basis. Significant differences in mean ratings of safety, comfort, ease of use, helpfulness, likelihood of use, and total composite score were detected between configurations with the modified OBC consistently ranked least favourable. There were no statistically significant relationships between the respondents' profiles, their preferred configurations or their patterns of bar use. A series of recommendations and suggestions for future research are made.