Narratives on prolonged baths from psychiatric care in Sweden during the first half of the twentieth century.

Prolonged baths were used within psychiatric care in Sweden during the first half of the twentieth century. Eight reports from nursing staff about experiences of prolonged baths were analysed. The aim is to gain a better understanding of what it could have meant for caregivers to give prolonged baths. The nursing staff described their work with the baths as an extremely tiresome and trying duty that was delegated to inexperienced personnel. They regarded the patients as impossible to communicate with verbally. Prolonged baths were said to have been used on 'the most severely disturbed', violent, or untidy patients. The nurses describe the patients' discomfort and protests, but also point out that the baths had the intended effect of calming down disturbed patients. Prolonged baths also functioned as a restraint.