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Monday, 7 July 2008
Learning Objective 1: know how to improve nurses' knowledge and practices regarding physical restraints.
Learning Objective 2: know the importance of inservice education program on the use of physical restraints.
Physical restraints are commonly used to protect the safety of the patients, but inappropriate use may cause possible injuries. Currently, physical restraints are still popular in clinical settings. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of in-service education on improving nurses' attitudes, knowledge and practices of using physical restraints. Through a quasi-experimental design, purposive sampling was used at two different branches in one hospital system. Fifty-nine nurses in one branch were recruited in the intervention group and seventy nurses in the other branch were recruited in the control group. The intervention group received a ninety-minute in-service education program, including (1) effects of physical restraints, (2) principles of physical restraints, (3) alternatives to physical restraints, and (4) ethical considerations of using physical restraints. The control group did not receive the program. Three scales, Knowledge about Physical Restraints Scale, Attitudes toward the Use of Restraints Scale and Nursing Practice of Restraints Questionnaire, were used to assess the baseline prior to the intervention and two weeks after the intervention. Through Mann-Whitney U test, the results showed a significant difference after the intervention between the intervention group and the control group in nurses' knowledge (p=.003) and practices (p=.002) of using physical restraints. However, nurses' attitudes did not demonstrate a significant difference between the two groups. These results indicated that the in-service education program was effective in improving the knowledge and practices of physical restraints among nurses. These findings can provide nurses and nursing managers as a future reference. Additionally, education of physical restraints is suggested to be routinely incorporated into the in-service education program in hospitals.