Mental health patients' preferences regarding restrictive interventions: An integrative review

What is known on the subject?

• The use of restrictive interventions is described as a violation of patients' rights and autonomy. It must only be used as a last resort to manage dangerous behaviour, to prevent or reduce the risk of mental health patients harming themselves or others.
• International mental health policy and legislation agree that when restrictive interventions are applied, the least restrictive alternative should be chosen.

What the paper adds to existing knowledge?

• The results are ambiguous, as to which restrictive intervention is preferred over others, but there are tendencies towards the majority preferring observation, with mechanical restraint being the least preferred.
• To make the experience less intrusive and restrictive, certain factors are preferred, such as a more pleasant and humane seclusion room environment, staff communicating during the application and staff of same gender applying the intervention.

What are the implications for practice?

• When applying restrictive interventions, mental health professionals should consider environment, communication and duration factors that influence patient preferences, such as the opportunity to keep some personal items in the seclusion room, or, when using restraint, to communicate the reason and explain what is going to happen.
• More research is needed to clarify patients' preferences regarding restrictive interventions and their views on which are the least restrictive. Preferably, agreement is needed on standard measures, and global use of the same definition of restrictive interventions.

Introduction

The use of restrictive interventions is a violation of patients' rights that causes physical and psychological harm and which is a well-known challenge globally. Mental health law and legislative principles and experts agree that when restrictive interventions are applied, the least restrictive alternative should be used. However, there is no consensus on what is the least restrictive alternative, especially from the patient perspective.

Aim

To investigate the literature on mental health patients' preferences regarding restrictive interventions applied during admission to a psychiatric hospital.

Method

An integrative review informed by the PRISMA statement and thematic analysis were undertaken.

Results

There were tendencies towards patients preferring observation and, for the majority, mechanical restraint was the least preferred restrictive intervention. Factors such as environment, communication and duration were found to influence patients' preferences.

Discussion

There is a lack of agreement on how best to measure patients' preferences and this complicates the choice of the least restrictive alternative. Nonetheless, our findings show that staff should consider environment, communication and duration when applying restrictive interventions.

Implications for Practice

More research on restrictive interventions and the least restrictive alternative is warranted, but agreement is needed on standard measures, and a standard global definition of restrictive interventions.