Chief Psychiatrist's annual report 2008-09 - Department of Health

10 Chief Psychiatrist’s annual report 2008–09
In spite of the decrease in the overall use of restraint across the state, the use of restraint in adult
mental health services has more than doubled, from 27 per cent of all episodes in 2007–08 to 58
per cent in 2008–09. Conversely, the use of restraint in aged persons mental health services fell,
from 70 per cent of all episodes in 2007–08 to 39 per cent in the reporting period.
The significant increase in the use of restraint in adult mental health services in 2008–09 can
be attributed largely to a single patient, whose treatment accounts for 13 per cent of all restraint
episodes. The Office of the Chief Psychiatrist has followed up this client’s treatment with the
service concerned. In addition, analysis of restraint data by the Office of the Chief Psychiatrist has
identified 50 restraint episodes of extremely short duration (most of them as short as one minute).
This is related to a new practice, in some services, of reporting all instances where a client has to
be briefly restrained at the start of a seclusion episode. This reporting practice has the unintended
effect of distorting statewide restraint data and will be reviewed by the Chief Psychiatrist.
2.3.4 Reasons for restraint
As in 2007–08, the largest single reason for using mechanical restraint was to prevent harm or
injury to the person themselves. The next main reason was to prevent harm or injury to another
person.
Figure 9: Reasons for mechanical restraint