Coercive measures in psychiatric clinics in Germany. Current practice (2012)

Due to the decisions of the German Constitutional Court on involuntary medication and the law on the prohibition of video surveillance in psychiatry in Nordrhine-Westfalia there has been an increasing discussion on coercive measures and how to conduct, supervise and prevent them. We conducted an online survey on the current practice of coercive measures in German psychiatric hospitals (2012). An online questionnaire was developed together with the working group for the prevention of violence and coercion in psychiatry and the regional association of psychiatry-experienced people in Baden-Wuerttemberg. The survey was conducted anonymously using the e-mail distribution lists of the psychiatric associations in Germany. A total of 88 questionnaires from hospitals with obligatory responsibility for a catchment area (19.7 % of those addressed) could be analyzed. Of these 99 % used internal or external guidelines, 97.5 % conducted de-escalation training, 23 % participated in external benchmarking on the use of coercive measures. All hospitals used mechanical restraint, approximately 50 % seclusion and physical restraint was practiced in 7 %. Most, but not all hospital directors reported that mechanical restraint and seclusion were continuously (24/7) monitored. Changes in practice in the years to come were expected by the majority. The survey revealed a high critical awareness concerning the use of coercive measures and the willingness to further change the practice.