Incidents in which children or young people experience severe distress or harm or cause distress or harm to others occur frequently in children and young people’s institutional settings. These incidents are often managed using restrictive practices, such as restraint, seclusion, sedation or constant observation; however, these also present significant risks of physical and psychological harm to children and young people as well as staff. Numerous interventions aim to reduce the use of restrictive techniques, but research is hampered by limited attention to specific intervention components. The behavior change technique taxonomy may improve reporting by providing a common language for specifying the content and mechanisms of behaviour change. This study aimed to identify, standardise and report the effectiveness of components of interventions to reduce restrictive practices in children and young people’s institutional settings.
To map interventions aimed at reducing restrictive practices in children and young people’s institutional settings internationally, to conduct behaviour change technique analysis of intervention components, to identify process elements, and to explore effectiveness evidence to identify promising behaviour change techniques and compare the results with those found in adult psychiatric inpatient settings in a companion review.
Systematic mapping review with programme content coding using the behavior change technique taxonomy.
Eleven relevant English-language health and social care research databases 1989–2019 [including Applied Social Sciences Index (ASSIA), Criminal Justice Abstracts, Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), MEDLINE and PsycInfo], grey literature and social media were searched during 2019 (updated January 2020). Data extraction, guided by Workgroup for Intervention Development and Evaluation Research (WIDER), Cochrane Library and theory coding scheme recommendations, included intervention characteristics and study design and reporting. Screening and quality appraisal used the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. The behavior change technique taxonomy was applied systematically, and interventions were coded for behaviour change technique components. Outcomes data were then related back to these components.
There were 121 records, including 76 evaluations. Eighty-two interventions, mostly multicomponent, were identified. Evaluation approaches commonly used a non-randomised design. There were no randomised controlled trials. Behaviour change techniques from 14 out of a possible 16 clusters were detected. Four clusters (i.e. goals and planning, antecedents, shaping knowledge, and feedback and monitoring) contained the majority of identified behaviour change techniques and were detected in over half of all interventions. Two clusters (i.e. self-belief and covert learning) contained no identified behaviour change techniques. The most common setting in which behaviour change techniques were found was ‘mental health’. The most common procedure focused on staff training. The two most common behaviour change techniques were instruction on how to perform the behaviour and restructuring the social environment. Promising behaviour change techniques included instruction on how to perform the behaviour, restructuring the social environment, feedback on outcomes of behaviour and problem-solving. Compared with the companion review, service user perspectives were more sparse and there was more interest in trauma-informed approaches. Effectiveness evidence, range of interventions and reporting were broadly similar.
Poor reporting may have prevented detection of some behaviour change techniques. The finding that the evidence was weak restricted the feasibility of examining behaviour change technique effectiveness. Literature searches were restricted to English-language sources.
This study generated, to our knowledge, the first review of evidence on the content and effectiveness of interventions to reduce restrictive practices in children and young people’s institutional settings. Interventions tend to be complex, reporting is inconsistent and robust evaluation data are limited, but some behaviour change techniques seem promising.
Promising behaviour change techniques could be further explored. Better evidence could help address the urgent need for effective strategies.
This study is registered as PROSPERO CRD42019124730.
This project was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Health and Social Care Delivery Research programme and will be published in full in ; Vol. 10, No. 8. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information.
