Research findings indicate that the symptoms and behaviour of acute psychiatric patients can fluctuate drastically within hours, and that structured daily risk assessments can reduce the risk of aggressive incidents and the duration of seclusion. The aim of this study was to investigate the validity of two structured observation tools, the Brøset Violence Checklist (BVC) and the Kennedy Axis V)...

BACKGROUND The use of coercive measures is an indicator of the quality of psychiatric inpatient treatment. To date, there is no data available to European comparisons on the incidence of such measures. METHODS The frequency and duration of mechanical restraint and seclusion on patients with a diagnosis of F2 ICD-10 was analysed in seven German and seven Swiss psychiatric hospitals in the year...

The purpose of this study was to determine if physical restraint and/or seclusion had been used with different frequencies in patients of different racial groups in an inpatient forensic psychiatry facility. The method used was a retrospective correlational study of all inpatients (n = 806) treated from January 1993 through August 2000 at Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center, a maximum-security in...

Aims and method The acute psychiatric in-patient service in Christchurch, New Zealand, recently changed from two locked and two unlocked wards to four open wards. This provided the opportunity to evaluate whether shifting to an unlocked environment was associated with higher rates of adverse events, including unauthorised absences, violent incidents and seclusion. We compared long-term adverse ...

Rates of restraint and seclusion on a child and adolescent unit were evaluated before and after the implementation of a restrictive state law which was designed to reduce the monthly rates of restraint. Overall, the total number of hours in restraint, corrected for mean daily census, decreased significantly. The average number of patients in chemical restraint stayed about the same. There was a...

The mental health field continues to be concerned about the use of seclusion and of mechanical and chemical restraints in treatment settings. Recovery Innovations, Inc. (RI), a nonprofit corporation that operates a range of recovery-oriented programs, successfully eliminated use of seclusion and nonchemical restraints in a crisis center. This success was the impetus behind implementation and ev...

Improving clinical outcomes, treating aggression, and reducing the use of restraints and seclusion are major concerns to providers of psychiatric services. Devising precise treatments directed by causal hypotheses that address the functional properties of maladaptive behaviors are essential for reducing aggression, increasing understanding of causal factors, and enhancing individual control and...