Restraint Reduction at a Pediatric Psychiatric Hospital: A Ten-Year Journey.

Background: Restraints are used as one of the safety interventions for children and adolescents in various community, hospital, and treatment settings. Although considered safety interventions, restraints are known to have many adverse effects on children and staff, including injuries; even reports of death are noted in the literature.

Objective: In an effort to reduce the use of restraints and to provide trauma-informed care in a 52-bed Pediatric Psychiatric Hospital, a quality improvement project was launched.

Successful seclusion and restraint prevention effort in child and adolescent programs.

The current article presents the experiences of three different child- and family-serving programs in the United States that have successfully implemented interventions to prevent the use of restraint and seclusion (R/S) in their respective facilities. The article also provides family and youth perspectives on the impact of and recommendations for preventing R/S. Over the past decade, a significant shift has occurred toward preventing the use of R/S within programs serving children and adolescents.