Influence of clinical and organizational changes in the use of mechanical restraint. Eight-year retrospective analysis in Mental Health Hospital Unit of Jerez de Frontera

Abstract

Introduction

Aggressiveness is a multidimensional phenomenon, characterized by many cognitive and emotional processes, which is often present in psychiatric disorders. Until the present time, mechanical restraint has been a tool used in order to avoid risks for patients or other people around them. It should be used as a last option, so new strategies to reduce the use of these measures favoring others are being developed.

Aim

We try to analyze the influence of clinical and organizational changes in the frequency and duration of mechanical restraints, in order to provide new data and built hypothesis for future intervention plans.

Methodology

This oral communication presents a retrospective analysis of mechanical restraints carried out in the Mental Health Hospital Unit of Jerez de la Frontera between 2007 and 2014, both inclusive, a sample of 950 episodes. Several variables will be analyzed and related to the different organizational events conducted in the Clinical Management Unit of Jerez de la Frontera.

Results

There has been a gradual reduction in the duration of mechanical restraints carried out in the Mental Health Unit Hospital of Jerez de la Frontera over the eight years studied, specially after the implementation of the agitation protocol developed in 2011.

Conclusion

In our experience, the implementation of a comprehensive clinical record, deep observation of the patient by the professionals and the development of protocols to regularize interventions performed during an episode of psychomotor agitation are useful strategies to reduce the duration of each mechanical restraint episode.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.