A European recommendation on best practice of procedural aspects of mechanical restraint, and forced medication

Methods Each of the 12 EUNOMIA centers formed a local "expert group" with representatives from parties involved in the procedure of coercive treatment (e.g. mental health professionals, users, legal experts) and organized semi-structured personal and/or group interviews. Current national legislation and nationally accepted guidelines on mechanical restraint and forced medication – where available – were also reviewed. All obtained information was elaborated by the local EUNOMIA teams and specific guidelines were extracted. By use of a qualitative contentanalytical method, these local documents were finally integrated into common clinical recommendations.