An exploration of mental health service users’ experience of being manually restrained in local NHS in-patient wards

Physical intervention is often used to manage incidents involving service users in mental health in-patient wards. Yet, little effort has been channelled into finding out the views of such individuals regarding the experience.
This study aimed to document the experiences and perceptions (good and bad) of local mental health service users who had the experience of being restrained whilst in admission.
A qualitative research approach adopting the phenomenological strategy was employed. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from five service users with seven experiences of manual restraint and who either volunteered, were contacted purposively or recruited through snowball sampling.
Service users identified two contrasting moods (anger and concern) of the staff restraint team. These moods they said, determined how the procedure was carried out. Twenty nine categories of restraint team practices were identified including: non-pain compliant holds, early intervention, post incident review including debriefing, pain compliant holds, angry orders/no communication, abandoned after being restrained.
The categories clustered under the six core themes that emerged from the data including: build-up to physical restraint, power imbalance, communication, staff training. The themes were discussed. One of the areas suggested for further research was how staff mood and feelings towards the person being restrained affect their practice during the process. The implications for future physical intervention training were considered.