Seclusion and restraint of children: A literature review

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The seclusion and restraint of children in psychiatric care represent extreme forms of intervention that are commonly used by nurses to provide containment and safety. There is widespread concern and ethical debate about the use of these controversial, untested, and questionably effective interventions with such a vulnerable population, especially when several more adaptive alternatives are available.

Nurses often are the key players in the decision to use and implement seclusion and restraint.

The concern of this paper, therefore, is nurses' beliefs about the rationale for and efficiency of the continued use of seclusion and restraint with children, and what alternatives are available. Mayton and Fontanez (1991) define seclusion as "the sequestration by placement of a recipient alone in a room which he has no means of leaving" (p. 33), and restraint as "direct restriction through mechanical means or personal force of the limbs, head or body of a recipient" (p. 33).