Incidence of physical restraints on acute general medical wards

On four acute medical wards 1292 patients were observed over 15 weeks to determine how frequently physical restraints were used. Patients were divided into age groups of less than 40 years, 40 to 55 years, 56 to 69 years, and 70 years and older. Ninety-five patients were found to be restrained giving an overall incidence of 7.4%. As expected, patients 70 years of age and older were restrained more frequently (20.3%) than younger patients, with the lowest incidence (2.9%) occurring in those 40 to 55 years of age. In each age group the patients who were restrained had a length of stay more than twice as long as their unrestrained counterparts. Twelve percent of the restrained patients died, which was nearly one-half of all the patients who died during the period of the study. The findings suggest a probable relationship between the severity of an illness and the use of physical restraints.