The Use of Restraints in UK Secure Forensic Psychiatric Services
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The Use of Restraints in UK Secure Forensic Psychiatric Services – From the Views of Service Users, Staff and Carers/Family
IRAS ID
337580
Contact name
Tammi Walker
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Durham University
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 6 months, 1 days
Research summary
This study wishes to look at the use of restraints in secure forensic inpatient psychiatric services. The researcher will focus on whether current use of restraints in these settings are directly proportional to the service users risk levels, which are assessed by clinical professionals. This research will also look at the environmental factors in the lead up to the use of restraints in these settings.
To be able to investigate this, the researcher wishes to explore the views of service users, hospital staff and family/carers’, on the use of restraints in secure forensic inpatient psychiatric services. Interviews and focus groups are proposed as the ideal way to collect in-depth, rich, qualitative data on these views. Quantitative information on the service users medical history, risk assessments, demographic information, history of index offence, care notes etc, will also be collected for the researcher to better understand the individual reasons and general context around the use of restraints in these settings. Information such as environmental factors, staff characteristics, staffing levels will also be collected to allow further analysis into the environmental factors, to better understand the context behind the events leading up to the use of restraints.
As mentioned above, the researcher wishes to recruit the following participants in this study: (1)Service users admitted in secure forensic inpatient psychiatric services, (2) hospital staff involved in risk assessment and restraints and (3) carers/family of service users receiving treatment in hospital or with lived experience of receiving treatment in secure forensic inpatient psychiatric services.REC name
North East - Newcastle & North Tyneside 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
24/NE/0061
Date of REC Opinion
3 Sep 2024
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion