Physical Restraints in Intensive Care Unit Patients

The use of physical restraints is common practice in Intensive Care Units (ICU). This medically prescribed procedure requires full attention of medical and paramedical teams for its implementation, monitoring and ending, as a major restriction of patients' individual freedom. French highest authority for health has defined, for geriatrics and psychiatric units, ten criteria of good practice for physical restraints' use. Routine practice reports critically ill patients' safety as main reason of use. This decision, often left to the sole discretion of nurses, varies according to their own representation of this risk, and depends on several factors: seniority in ICU, nurse to patient ratio and personal workload. In order to reduce practices subjectivity and heterogeneity, we have developed a decision-making tool for physical restraints implementation. This tool is based on objective scales used on a daily basis concerning neurological status (Richmond Agitation-Sedation Scale (RASS) and Confusion Assessment Method for the ICU (CAM-ICU)). Disorientation or delirium can lead to severe incidents by promoting accidental removing of important devices such as arterial of venous line, drains among others. However, physical restraints are recognized as a major cause of delirium and agitation. Critically ill patients require rigorous evaluation of organ dysfunctions necessitating adequate invasive equipments, with associated risks of unexpected removal or alteration. Such events could urge caregivers to use physical restraints. Based on recent literature, about a third of ICU patients are restrained, and accidental deconditioning is mainly observed within these particular patients. In addition, three categories of patients have been defined according to the invasive nature of their equipment and therefore according to the risk associated with an unexpected withdrawal. Finally, presence of patient's family and their adherence to its surveillance were also implemented into the tool. Main study objective is to jointly investigate effectiveness and tolerance of a decision-making tool guiding physical restraints use in ICU patients.