ArticleBMC geriatrics2009
Emotional stress as a trigger of falls leading to hip or pelvic fracture. Results from the ToFa study - a case-crossover study among elderly people in Stockholm, Sweden.
Article in BMC geriatrics, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- Ageing Population and Balance Under Stressful Conditions-A Cross-Sectional Observational Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Detection of balance in the elderly under the influence of stress (DEPIE): A cross-sectional study protocol.PloS one · 2026Observational
- Longitudinal Associations Between Disaster Damage and Falls/Fear of Falling in Older Adults: 9-Year Follow-Up of Survivors of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.Innovation in aging · 2023Article
- Post-traumatic stress disorder and incident fractures in the Danish population.Osteoporosis international : a journal established as result of cooperation between the European Foundation for Osteoporosis and the National Osteoporosis Foundation of the USA · 2018Article
- Perceived stress and risk of any osteoporotic fracture.Osteoporosis international : a journal established as result of cooperation between the European Foundation for Osteoporosis and the National Osteoporosis Foundation of the USA · 2016Article
- Risk factors for falls in older Korean adults: the 2011 Community Health Survey.Journal of Korean medical science · 2014Article
- Association of stressful life events with incident falls and fractures in older men: the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men (MrOS) Study.Age and ageing · 2014Article
- Cancer-related stress and complementary and alternative medicine: a review.Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM · 2012Article
- Potential for bias in case-crossover studies with shared exposures analyzed using SAS.American journal of epidemiology · 2011Article
- Health, wellbeing and nutritional status of older people living in UK care homes: an exploratory evaluation of changes in food and drink provision.BMC geriatrics · 2010Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSudden emotions may interfere with mechanisms for keeping balance among the elderly. The aim of this study is to analyse if emotional stress and specifically feelings of anger, sadness, worries, anxiety or stress, can trigger falls leading to hip or pelvic fracture among autonomous older people.
methodsThe study applied the case-crossover design and was based on data gathered by face to face interviews carried out in Stockholm between November 2004 and January 2006 at the emergency wards of two hospitals. Cases (n = 137) were defined as persons aged 65 and older admitted for at least one night due to a fall-related hip or pelvic fracture (ICD10: S72 or S32) and meeting a series of selection criteria. Results are presented as relative risks with 95% confidence intervals.
resultsThere was an increased risk for fall and subsequent hip or pelvic fracture for up to one hour after emotional stress. For anger there was an increased relative risk of 12.2 (95% CI 2.7-54.7), for sadness of 5.7 (95% CI 1.1-28.7), and for stress 20.6 (95% CI 4.5-93.5) compared to periods with no such feelings.
conclusionEmotional stress seems to have the potential to trigger falls and subsequent hip or pelvic fracture among autonomous older people. Further studies are needed to clarify how robust the findings are - as the number of exposed cases is small - and the mechanisms behind them - presumably balance and vision impairment in stress situation.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.