Learning from tragedy: a survey of child and adolescent restraint fatalities.

Objective: This descriptive study examines 45 child and adolescent fatalities related to restraints in residential (institutional) placements in the United States from 1993 to 2003.

Method: The study team used common Internet search engines as its primary case discovery strategy to determine the frequency and the nature of the fatalities, as well as the characteristics of the children and the adolescents involved.

Results: Male children and adolescents were over-represented in the study sample.