WISH Hosts Webinar on Strategies to Reduce Restraints in Mental Health Settings

Doha, May 26 (QNA) - The World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) has hosted a webinar discussing effective strategies to reduce the use of restraints and seclusions to treat mental illness. The webinar formed part of the Safer Care Accelerator series organised by the Leading Health Systems Network (LHSN), a WISH initiative that shares best practice and inspires health systems worldwide to provide safer care for patients. Hosted by Dr Muhammad Waqar Azeem, Inaugural Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Sidra Medical and Research Center and Weill Cornell Medicine Qatar (WCM Q), the WISH webinar highlighted how physical and mechanical restraints and seclusions are used in child and adolescent psychiatric treatment venues as a means of managing aggressive and self-harming behaviour. Dr Waqar spoke about how these measures can produce unintended harm. "These procedures can be aversive and traumatizing for patients, and in the worst case scenarios, deaths have been reported," Dr Waqar said. "Hence, it's important to develop programmes leading to prevention of these interventions. This webinar reflects on core strategies used to prevent and reduce restraints and seclusions, leading to improved safety and provision of trauma-informed care." Egbert Schillings, CEO of WISH, a global initiative of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF), said: "Mental health is too often overlooked by health systems despite a marked increase in mental health conditions worldwide. It is therefore especially noteworthy that we are able to avail of the expertise offered by Dr Waqar in addressing patient safety and mental health." (QNA)