Psychiatric Nurses' Attitude and Practice toward Physical Restraint

This study was to assess psychiatric nurses' attitude and practice toward physical restraint among mentally ill patients.

A descriptive research design was used to achieve the study objective. The present study was carried out in three specialized governmental mental hospitals and two psychiatric wards in general hospital. A convenient purposive sample of 96 nurses who were working in the previously mentioned setting was included. The tool used for data collection was the Self-Administered Structured Questionnaire; it included three parts: The first comprised items concerned with demographic characteristics of the nurses, the second comprised 10 item measuring nurses' attitudes toward physical restraint, and the third was used to assess nurses' practices regarding use of physical restraint.

There were insignificant differences between attitudes and practices in relation to nurses' sex, level of education, years of experience and work place. Moreover, a positive significant correlation was found between nurses' total attitude scores, and practices regarding use of physical restraint.

Psychiatric nurses have positive attitude and adequate practice toward using physical restraints as an alternative management for psychiatric patients. It is important for psychiatric nurses to acknowledge that physical restraints should be implemented as the last resort. The study recommended that it is important for psychiatric nurses to acknowledge that physical restraints should be implemented as the last resort.