P124: Side-rails as a measure of physical restraint. Perception of healthcare professionals belonging to Nursing Department. GERBAR study.

Abstract

Objective:

The use of side-rails from the headboard to the foot of both sides of the bed (from now on “the rails”) is the most used tool to prevent falls in our hospital setting. However, its consideration as physical restraint in the different international consensus is not clear. In the GERBAR study (NCT04861025), we intend to evaluate the perception of the rails as a measure of physical restraint, both by hospitalized users and by the health personnel who care for them. The trial is being performed at the Consorci Sanitari Alt Penedes-Garraf, CSAPG (Barcelona, Spain). In this report we show partial results of the data obtained from the health personnel belonging to Nursing Department.

Methods:

An online poll has been carried out through the intranet and corporate emails in the last two months of 2022. All the people who works as health personnel at the CSAPG (1652 people) have been invited to this poll.

Results:

We obtained a total of 246 responses, of which 27 responses have been removed for not being completed correctly. 152 responses were made by health personnel attached to the Nursing Department: 72 auxiliary nursing personnel (15.38% of the total CSAPG professionals in this professional group) and 80 nurses (14.47%). Proportion of job seniority greater than two years was 74.34% (69.44% auxiliary personnel, 78.75% nurses). 91.67% have been women with a median age of 40.87 years. 46.40% of this sample does not considered the rails as physical restraints (50% auxiliary personnel and 41.25% nurses). When analyzing by job seniority, 48.72% of the professionals with <2 years of seniority does not consider the rails as a physical restraint (44.25% in those with >=2 years). Professional group and job seniority were not significantly associated with perception of the rails as a physical restraint (chi-square 1.17, p 0.2793 for professional group and chi-square 0.23, p 0.6288 for job seniority).

Conclusion:

An important proportion of health professional belonging to Nursing Department does not consider the rails as a physical restraint. This perception was not related to the professional group or job seniority.