PHYSICAL RESTRAINT USE IN ELDERLY PATIENTS: PERCEPTIONS OF NURSES IN UNIVERSITY HOSPITALS

Abstract

Introduction: Nurses are primarily responsible for patient care and safety. Identification of nurses perceptions about restraint practices is thus important for raising awareness on this issue. This study aimed to identify perceptions about physical restraint use among nurses working in wards and intensive care units (ICUs) in three university hospitals.

Materials and Method: The study was conducted in three university hospitals with 298 nurses who completed the Perceptions of Restraint Use Questionnaire (PRUQ) to evaluate their perceptions of the use of restraint in the care of older patients. Higher values indicated that the situations described were considered an important justification for using physical restraints.

Results: The overall mean score for the PRUQ was 4.14. Nurses identified "Falling out of bed" as the most important reason for restraining a patient and "Substituting for staff observation"as the least important reason. In addition, there was a significant relationship between the perception of using restraints in wards and ICUs. It was noted that the nurses reported that using restraints in ICUs was more common than in wards.

Conclusion: The nurses' perceptions on the practice of physical restraint were high. According to these result, the nurses need to learn alternative practices for decreasing use of restraints and consider it important to plan individualized nursing care for older patients who need to be restrained and to provide sufficient information to them and their families about the safety charestics of the practice.