Feelings Thermometer: An Early Intervention Scale for Seclusion/Restraint Reduction Among Children and Adolescents in Residential Psychiatric Care.
Restraints and/or seclusions (R/S) are events that have the potential to cause patient injury, staff injury, re-traumatization, and even death. There is a gap in available data regarding alternative strategies for reducing R/S. A 140-bed children and adolescent residential treatment hospital implemented a "Feelings Thermometer Scale" on each unit. The "Feelings Thermometer" allowed the resident to point to a face on the scale to rate how they were feeling from "Cool" to "On Fire!" Once the resident identified with a feeling and rating, options were offered for alternative cool down locations corresponding to each level of escalation. Data were analyzed 6 weeks before and 6 weeks after implementation of the "Feelings Thermometer." There were 129 R/S during the 6-week period prior to the implementation of the "Feelings Thermometer." There were a total of 91 R/S during the 6-week period postimplementation of the "Feelings Thermometer." Overall, a 29.1% decrease in R/S was experienced throughout the hospital. The findings of this study suggest that further investigation may be warranted to promote alternative R/S reduction strategies.