nursingforsocialjustice

I am so slowly drawing to the close of the thesis component of my Master of Psychiatric nursing program. My thesis research was on acute adult mental health nurses experiences of administering chemical restraint. It’s a phenomenological study. It’s a pretty cutting edge research topic in Canada…which seems appalling considering the wide use of the intervention (less cutting edge globally, but still pretty foundational globally). As I progressed through the research and writing about the research I became for aware, and also more distressed by my own practice, the practice I see, the system, so many things. Today, I work up thinking about the way restraint use on inpatient mental health is misused.

Thought Questions for when you are thinking about if use of restraint is ethical:

Is is a safety issue?

Is it the patient’s safety issue?

Is it related to the patients mental Health symptoms?

Is it something that could be happening to a patient admitted to a medical unit? How would I intervene on the medical unit? Would I be considering transfer to psych because of need of a seclusion room or mechanical restraint? Or would I try to find the underlying cause?

What if this was me? What if this was my loved one?

Is is reasonable for the person in front of me to be acting this way based on their situation (not the way I would act in this situation, the way they would react given their circumstance…again, not my circumstance and my education and experience, but theirs)?