Physical restraint use in intensive care units

Most patients hospitalized in intensive care units suffer from restlessness, confusion, and delirium. Physical restraint seems to be the only acceptable measure for ensuring patients’ own and others’ safety in certain cases in which other interventions are not applicable or useful. The aim of this study was “to evaluate the application of physical restraint standards in intensive care units”. This was a cross-sectional descriptive study. A convenient sample of 120 physically restrained patients was recruited from the intensive care units of selected hospitals of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. The data collection tool was an observational checklist for physical restraint standards. The SPSS16 was used for calculating the measures of descriptive statistics and conducting statistical tests. Most of the participating patients were male (65.8%), aged 50–60 years (62.5%), and had a Glasgow Coma Scale score of less than 8. The Fisher’s exact test revealed a significant difference among the studied intensive care units and also among the three phases of using restraint (i.e. before, during, and after restraint use) regarding the rate of applying restraint standards (p≤0.001). Moreover, restraint standards were minimally applied in the study setting. Educating nurses—as the first decision makers for restraint use—and familiarizing them with restraint-related clinical guidelines are crucial.