Skip to main content
PLOS One logoLink to PLOS One
. 2021 Nov 22;16(11):e0260446. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260446

Physical restraint of dementia patients in acute care hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cohort analysis in Japan

Takuya Okuno 1, Hisashi Itoshima 1, Jung-ho Shin 1, Tetsuji Morishita 1, Susumu Kunisawa 1, Yuichi Imanaka 1,*
Editor: Masaki Mogi2
PMCID: PMC8608313  PMID: 34807945

Abstract

Introduction

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has caused unprecedented challenges for the medical staff worldwide, especially for those in hospitals where COVID-19-positive patients are hospitalized. The announcement of COVID-19 hospital restrictions by the Japanese government has led to several limitations in hospital care, including an increased use of physical restraints, which could affect the care of elderly dementia patients. However, few studies have empirically validated the impact of physical restraint use during the COVID-19 pandemic. We aimed to evaluate the impact of regulatory changes, consequent to the pandemic, on physical restraint use among elderly dementia patients in acute care hospitals.

Methods

In this retrospective study, we extracted the data of elderly patients (aged > 64 years) who received dementia care in acute care hospitals between January 6, 2019, and July 4, 2020. We divided patients into two groups depending on whether they were admitted to hospitals that received COVID-19-positive patients. We calculated descriptive statistics to compare the trend in 2-week intervals and conducted an interrupted time-series analysis to validate the changes in the use of physical restraint.

Results

In hospitals that received COVID-19-positive patients, the number of patients who were physically restrained per 1,000 hospital admissions increased after the government’s announcement, with a maximum incidence of 501.4 per 1,000 hospital admissions between the 73rd and 74th week after the announcement. Additionally, a significant increase in the use of physical restraints for elderly dementia patients was noted (p = 0.004) in hospitals that received COVID-19-positive patients. Elderly dementia patients who required personal care experienced a significant increase in the use of physical restraints during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conclusion

Understanding the causes and mechanisms underlying an increased use of physical restraints for dementia patients can help design more effective care protocols for similar future situations.

Introduction

The rapid spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has progressively increased and continues to disrupt healthcare systems worldwide [1]. In acute care hospitals, especially those treating COVID-19 patients, the medical staff members face difficulties in providing routine care owing to patient triage, social distancing, and shortage of resources such as finances, medical supplies, and manpower [24]. To manage the pandemic, the Japanese government announced hospital restrictions, including those pertaining to family visits, at the end of March 2020. Eventually, a state of emergency was declared for specific areas on 7th April, 2020, and implemented nationwide on 16th April, 2020. Social distancing and limiting family visits impacted the hospital care systems in many ways, such as reduced communications with medical staff and family members; these in turn could exacerbate progressive cognitive dysfunction and worsen behavioral and psychological symptoms in dementia patients and consequently, result in higher distress to both patients and medical staff [5].

The use of physical restraint for dementia patients has been discussed in recent years. Physical restraint is often used in acute care settings [68] and includes 11 means of mechanical restraint based on national guidelines for the prevention of physical restraints [9]. However, such means may confer critical medical disadvantages for patients, including restraint device-related injuries, such as asphyxiation or chest compression, and immobility-related complications, such as deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, aspiration pneumonia, and rhabdomyolysis [1013].

Owing to the abovementioned disadvantages and ethical concerns, recommendations to avoid the use of physical restraint have been made worldwide, including Japan [1416]. Since 2016, in Japan, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) has factored in an additional fee in the universal benefit scheme for dementia care of patients without severe disorientation who need personal care, wherein a financial disincentive of 40% reduction is provided if physical restraint is used [17]. As dementia symptoms may not be recognizable during routine care, this benefit may be particularly applicable to patients who have communication-related challenges or symptoms that inhibit their daily life without diagnosis of dementia [18]. To be eligible to obtain the stipulated benefit, nurses need to be trained in dementia care, and a standardized protocol for mechanical and chemical restraint procedures for sedation is required [17].

Providing routine comprehensive care for dementia patients may have been especially challenging during the 1st wave of the COVID-19 pandemic as the unprecedented crisis seriously impacted the healthcare systems [5]. However, only few studies have explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on dementia care, especially with regard to physical restraint use for dementia patients. Therefore, in this retrospective cohort study, we aimed to evaluate the changes in the use of physical restraints among dementia patients in acute care hospitals stratified on the basis of them receiving or not receiving COVID-19-positive patients. We hypothesized that dementia patients are more likely to be physical restrained during the pandemic in acute care hospitals that treat COVID-19 patients than during pandemic-free time periods.

Materials and methods

Data source

We used the Diagnosis Procedure Combination (DPC) data from the Quality Indicator/Improvement Project (QIP) database in Japan. The QIP participant hospitals provide claims data and DPC data to improve their system and quality of care using quality indicators. Across Japan, more than 200 QIP participant hospitals, both public and private, and of various sizes were included; in these hospitals, the number of general beds (hospital beds not earmarked as psychiatric, infectious disease, and tuberculosis beds) according to the Japanese classification of hospital beds ranged from 30 to 1,151 in 2019.

The DPC/per-diem payment system (PDPS) is a Japanese prospective payment system that is used in acute care hospitals and is comparable to diagnosis-related databases in the United States [19, 20]. A total of 1,730 hospitals adopted the DPC/PDPS in 2018, which accounted for 54% of all general beds in Japanese hospitals [21, 22]. However, the DPC data do not include detailed information on the level of nursing care; instead, they provide information such as primary diagnoses, comorbidities (identified using the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision [ICD-10] codes), drug or device prescriptions, and codes corresponding to the performed medical procedures as stated in the discharge summary.

Study population

The eligibility criteria for inclusion in this study were as follows: age > 64 years; availability of admission and discharge summary for 78 weeks between January 6, 2019, and July 4, 2020; and application of dementia care benefit during admission. We excluded patients who were admitted to the intensive care unit or were hospitalized for COVID-19 treatment because their clinical characteristics and disease severity greatly differed from those of other dementia patients, and therefore, the use of physical restraints in the former could be a consequence of other factors/mechanisms.

Variables

We obtained information on patients’ sex, age, ambulance use, admission type, admission pathway, comorbidity indices (Charlson Comorbidity Index [CCI]) [23], whether a surgical procedure was conducted, reason for admission based on the ICD-10 codes (infection, neoplasm, endocrine, mental and behavioral, nervous, circulatory, respiratory, digestive, musculoskeletal, genitourinary, injury, and others), and length of stay (LOS) to examine the baseline patient characteristics. The patients were assigned to three groups based on age (65–74, 75–84, and ≥ 85 years). LOS is presented as the median and interquartile range. The outcome of interest was the frequency of physical restraint use among patients who applied for dementia care benefit. Data regarding the use of physical restraint during dementia care were extracted from the payment codes for services.

Statistical analysis

First, we divided the 78-week period into 39 categories of 2-week intervals based on the admission data and specified the appropriate timing category of the announcement of COVID-19 hospital restrictions by the Japanese government (33rd out of 39 categories) as the point of implementation, the state of emergency. In Japan, hospitals that can accept COVID-19-positive patients were designated by the MHLW. If no COVID-19-positive patients were hospitalized during this study period, we considered that the impact of COVID-19 was small. Therefore, we categorized the study population into two groups: hospitals having at least one COVID-19-positive patient admission during the study period (Group 1) and those having none (Group 2). Subsequently, we divided our datasets into two periods for the interrupted time-series (ITS) analysis: pre- (1–32) and post-announcement (33–39). Comparisons were conducted using the chi-squared test or Fisher’s exact test or the Kruskal–Wallis rank sum test, as appropriate. Thereafter, to examine the trend, the number of patients who were physically restrained per 1,000 hospitalizations as indicated for every 2 weeks during the whole study period are presented in line graphs for each group. Finally, we used ITS, including segmented regressions, to ascertain the impact of the government’s announcement of the state of emergency. We statistically assessed the changes in the number of patients who were physically restrained per 1,000 hospitalizations and who were provided with the dementia care benefit based on the date of admission adjusted for seasonality through a Fourier term [24]. The level of statistical significance was set at p < 0.05 (two-tailed). Statistical analyses were performed with R version 4.0.2 (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria).

The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee, Kyoto University Graduate School and Faculty of Medicine. This study was conducted in accordance with the ethical guidelines issued by the Japanese National Government for medical and health research involving human participants. The data were anonymized, and the requirement for informed consent was waived by the approving authority.

Results

We identified 158,797 admissions from 245 hospitals. After excluding patients admitted to the ICU (n = 2,737) and those being treated for COVID-19 (n = 204), 155,856 admissions were finally recognized. Thereafter, we divided the hospitals into 2 groups, admissions in hospitals that received COVID-19 positive patients (Group 1, 97,233 admissions) and those that received none (Group 2, 58,623 admissions), which are shown in Fig 1. Tables 1 and 2 show the demographics of patients who were eligible for inclusion from before to after the state of emergency announced by the MHLW in both groups. All variables are expressed as absolute numbers (n) and relative frequencies (%). Among the patients, those aged > 85 years comprised more than half of the study population, and most patients needed urgent or emergent hospitalization (Group 1: 86.6% vs. 86.9%; Group 2: 78.9% vs. 77.2%). In Group 1, the percentages of subjection to surgical procedures pre- and post-COVID-19-related regulatory intervention (11.7% vs. 12.1%; p = 0.094) were marginally high, whereas the percentage of CCI > 2 was low (19.8% vs. 18.5%; p < 0.001) after the intervention. Fig 2 displays the number of patients who were physically restrained per 1,000 hospitalizations (shown on the line) in both groups. Group 2 shows a lower number throughout the study period than Group 1. After the 66th week of announcement by the MHLW, the number of cases that required physical restriction per 1,000 hospitalizations increased, with a maximum of 501.4 during the 73rd and 74th week in Group 1. According to the ITS analysis in Fig 3, the number of patients who were physically restrained per 1,000 hospitalizations significantly increased only in Group 1 after the state of emergency was announced by the MHLW (Group 1: p = 0.004; Group 2: p = 0.437).

Fig 1. Flowchart depicting patient progression in this study based on the eligibility and exclusion criteria.

Fig 1

Table 1. Characteristics of patients who received dementia care before and after COVID-19-related regulatory changes in hospitals that received COVID-19-positive patients.

Characteristics Pre-intervention Post-intervention p
Number of patients 80,468 16,765
Male, n (%) 34,410 (42.8) 7,084 (42.3) 0.23
Age, years, mean (SD) 85.01 (7.35) 84.97 (7.31) 0.611
Age category, years, n (%) 0.282
    65–74 7,486 (9.3) 1,538 (9.2)
    75–84 27,775 (34.5) 5,894 (35.2)
    ≥85 45,207 (56.2) 9,333 (55.7)
Ambulance use, n (%) 40,509 (50.3) 8,423 (50.2) 0.823
Urgent or emergent admission, n (%) 69,646 (86.6) 14,566 (86.9) 0.252
Admission pathway, n (%) 0.545
    Home 51,478 (64.0) 10,651 (63.5)
    Hospital or nursing home 28,932 (36.0) 6,101 (36.4)
    Other 58 (0.1) 13 (0.1)
Charlson Comorbidity Index >2, n (%) 15,951 (19.8) 3,104 (18.5) <0.001
Surgery during admission, n (%) 9,377 (11.7) 2,031 (12.1) 0.094
Reason for admission, n (%) <0.001
    Infection, n (%) 2,194 (2.7) 457 (2.7)
    Neoplasm, n (%) 5,336 (6.6) 1,214 (7.2)
    Endocrine, n (%) 4,047 (5.0) 827 (4.9)
    Mental and behavioral, n (%) 360 (0.4) 68 (0.4)
    Nervous, n (%) 2,579 (3.2) 501 (3.0)
    Circulatory, n (%) 15,087 (18.7) 2,895 (17.3)
    Respiratory, n (%) 16,829 (20.9) 2,936 (17.5)
    Digestive, n (%) 8,414 (10.5) 1,947 (11.6)
    Musculoskeletal, n (%) 2,187 (2.7) 463 (2.8)
    Genitourinary, n (%) 6,750 (8.4) 1,587 (9.5)
     Injury, n (%) 11,061 (13.7) 2,490 (14.9)
    Others, n (%) 5,624 (6.9) 1,380 (8.0)
Length of stay, median (IQR) 21 [12, 39] 20 [12, 36] <0.001

SD: standard deviation, IQR: interquartile range

Table 2. Characteristics of patients who received dementia care before and after COVID-19-related regulatory changes in hospitals that received no COVID-19-positive patients.

Characteristics Pre-intervention Post-intervention P
Number of patients 48,424 10,199
Male, n (%) 19,746 (40.8) 4,223 (41.4) 0.245
Age, years, mean (SD) 85.51 (7.37) 85.34 (7.35) 0.029
Age category, years, n (%) 0.018
    65–74 4,200 (8.7) 919 (9.0)
    75–84 15,305 (31.6) 3,344 (32.8)
    ≥85 28,919 (59.7) 5,936 (58.2)
Ambulance use, n (%) 17,349 (35.8) 3,587 (35.2) 0.214
Urgent or emergent admission, n (%) 38,216 (78.9) 7,877 (77.2) <0.001
Admission pathway, n (%) 0.826
    Home 27,615 (57.0) 5,850 (57.4)
    Hospital or nursing home 20,789 (42.9) 4,345 (42.6)
    Other 20 (0.0) 4 (0.0)
Charlson Comorbidity Index >2, n (%) 9,029 (18.6) 1,907 (18.7) 0.913
Surgery during admission, n (%) 3,715 (7.7) 731 (7.2) 0.084
Reason for admission, n (%) <0.001
    Infection, n (%) 954 (2.0) 177 (1.7)
    Neoplasm, n (%) 2,257 (4.7) 520 (5.1)
    Endocrine, n (%) 2,370 (4.9) 563 (5.5)
    Mental and behavioral, n (%) 421 (0.9) 102 (1.0)
    Nervous, n (%) 1,936 (4.0) 362 (3.5)
    Circulatory, n (%) 9,504 (19.6) 2,176 (21.3)
    Respiratory, n (%) 10,760 (22.2) 1,761 (17.3)
Digestive, n (%) 4,056 (8.4) 900 (8.8)
    Musculoskeletal, n (%) 1,827 (3.8) 446 (4.4)
    Genitourinary, n (%) 4,122 (8.5) 910 (8.9)
    Injury, n (%) 7,153 (14.8) 1,604 (15.7)
    Others, n (%) 3,064 (6.3) 648 (6.4)
Length of stay, median (IQR) 25 [14, 50] 26 [14, 50] 0.579

Fig 2. Comparison of the number of patients restrained between the two groups.

Fig 2

The number of patients physically restrained per 1,000 hospital admissions for 2-week intervals between January 1, 2019, and June 30, 2020, in the two groups.

Fig 3. Interrupted time-series analysis of the number of patients who were restrained.

Fig 3

The number of patients physically restrained per 1,000 hospital admissions over time was evaluated with an interrupted time-series analysis including segmented regressions (Group 1: p = 0.032; Group 2: p = 0.341). The solid line represents the actual transition and the dotted line represents the hypothetical transition in the absence of intervention.

Discussion

This study examined the trends of dementia patients requiring nursing care who were physically restrained per 1,000 hospitalizations and tracked important changes in this regard during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. The main finding of our study was that following the MHLW’s announcement of COVID-19 hospital restrictions and the state of emergency, dementia patients who required nursing care were significantly more likely to be physically restrained in hospitals that received COVID-19-positive patients.

Dementia has increasingly gained importance as a public health concern, and the medical staff in acute care hospitals often need to provide dementia care to elderly patients [25, 26]. Physical restraint, which is preferably avoided wherever possible, in conformance with worldwide recommendations, is often exercised in acute care settings, especially for elderly patients and those with dementia [7, 8, 15, 2729]. Physical restraint is exercised to prevent falls and self-extubation owing to the low availability of medical staff and inadequate resources to constantly monitor at-risk patients because of the immense workload [6, 30]. There are few reports about changes in the implementation rate of physical restraint due to disasters such as the COVID-19 pandemic. However, one recent observational study showed the possibility of increased use of physical restraint during the COVID-19 pandemic [31], which supports our results.

We believe that the main reason for the significantly increased use of physical restraints for elderly dementia patients in only Group 1 during the COVID-19 pandemic was due to factors associated with the quality of care. Although it has been reported that cognitive function of the elderly may worsen with social distancing being implemented nationwide in Japan [32, 33], the reason for an obvious increase in the use of physical restraint in the ITS analysis at the hospitals without any hospitalization of COVID-19-positive patients in this study was unclear.

The mental and physical statuses of the medical staff are important to provide the best care for patients. During the COVID-19 outbreak, the medical staff were under pressure owing to the heavy workload and higher risk of infection due to lack of sufficient personal protective equipment [3436]. Owing to the increase in nosocomial infections from February to April, 2020, medical staff were seen as epicenters, and this led to widespread irrational prejudice and discrimination against them in off duty-hours. They were denied use of public vehicles and their children were asked to refrain from attending nursery schools [36]. In hospital, nurses are required to take care of several patients simultaneously during pandemics, such as the COVID-19 pandemic [37], while wearing personal protective equipment, which makes communication difficult. The threshold for physically restraining elderly dementia patients may have been lowered owing to changes in the care system that have occurred consequent to the implementation of hospital strategies or owing to an increase in both physical and mental strain on medical staff.

Factors associated with the care system, including limiting family visits, might have also possibly affected the result. In Japan, even the state of emergency is not legally binding; therefore, the hospital visit restrictions at hospitals without COVID-19 positive patients might have been more permissive than hospitals with COVID-19-positive patients’ hospitalizations. For dementia patients, communicating with visitors, especially family members, is important to maintain their cognitive function [29, 31, 38, 39]. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines allow care partners to visit patients if they are essential to the patients’ physical or emotional well-being, even during the COVID-19 pandemic [40]. Furthermore, use of telemedicine and digital technology can be helpful for the management of chronic neurological diseases, including dementia and cognitive impairment [41].

This study had several limitations. First, the severity of manpower shortage and the extent to which the restriction regarding family visitation was strictly enforced were unclear. More thorough infection control measures were considered to be practiced in hospitals that treated COVID-19-positive patients than in hospitals that did not. However, we could not consider and evaluate different burdens on the medical staff owing to differences in the number of admissions of COVID-19-positive patients in the target hospitals. To manage restrictions on in-person visits owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, some hospitals have been attempting to ensure a virtual connection between patients and their loved ones via tablets or smartphones. Despite the limitations in the use of technology, including difficulty in hearing over devices, patients can benefit by communicating with their family members [42]. Second, we could not evaluate the exact quality of dementia care in each group. As shown in Fig 2, hospitals with COVID-19-positive cases already have higher percentages of restraint in the hospital than those before the COVID-19 pandemic. It may be desirable to evaluate the quality of dementia care and the involvement of a geriatric specialist; however, this is not possible owing to a limited database. However, the target population for this study was the inpatients for whom dementia care benefit was calculated. We believe that the quality of care in the two populations is secured to a certain extent because the hospitals need to have staff trained in dementia care and conduct regular care meetings in order to calculate the additional fee. Additionally, since this study uses the impact of COVID-19 as an intervention point to compare the percentage of physical restraint practices in the hospital for each group over time, we believe that this is not a problem. Third, we could not detect the type or severity of dementia, which is often not recognized in general hospitals [18], as the applicable benefit did not require precise information about dementia. However, patients who were eligible for inclusion in this study were patients who were judged by the medical staff, trained in dementia care, as having dementia or an equivalent cognitive impairment that interfered with their daily lives and necessitated nursing care [17]. Moreover, the dementia care benefit cannot be applied to those who have severe disorientation (indicated with a Glasgow Coma Scale score < 9) [9, 17]. Therefore, we believe that patients with dementia of severity within a certain range were selected. Fourth, the proportions of each reason for hospitalization may differ before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we attempted to evaluate the use of physical restraint to whole inpatient populations with cognitive impairment. Therefore, we could not fully consider the difference in the implementation rate of physical restraint use per disease.

However, we included large sample sizes, which is a strength of our study. Multicomponent interventions that increase medical staff awareness have limited effectiveness in reducing physical restraint use [16]; however, we believe that examining the current situation during the pandemic can significantly help prepare for similar future circumstances.

Conclusions

We demonstrated and validated a trend of increased use of physical restraints for elderly dementia patients using ITS analyses of administrative data. Elderly dementia patients who require personal care might be more likely to be physically restrained during the COVID-19 pandemic in hospitals receiving COVID-19-positive patients. While limited social interaction is inevitable to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the promotion of telemedicine and mental or physical care for medical staff may be important in reducing the use of physical restraints among dementia care patients. Future research should identify causative factors, including patient environment and stress among medical staff members, that lead to the increased use of physical restraints and explore avenues to reduce this use in future pandemics.

Acknowledgments

We thank all the staff members and all the participating acute care hospitals.

Data Availability

According to the Ethical Guidelines for Medical and Health Research Involving Human Subjects of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan (a provisional translation is available from https://www.mhlw.go.jp/file/06-Seisakujouhou-10600000-Daijinkanboukouseikagakuka/0000080278.pdf), providing “information” to study subjects is one of the necessary conditions for waiving informed consent. The range of data users is included the “information”. Therefore, the datasets generated during and/or analyzed during this study are available from the corresponding author and Office of Research Promotion, General Affairs and Planning Division, Kyoto University (E-mail: kikaku06@mail2.adm.kyoto-u.ac.jp; Tel: +81-75-753-9301) on reasonable request. The Ethics Committee, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University (e-mail: ethcom@kuhp.kyoto-u.ac.jp) also can help those who need further information regarding the data availability of this study.

Funding Statement

This study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP19H01075 from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, GAP Fund Program of Kyoto University type B, Health Labour Sciences Research Grant from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan [21IA1005], and Humanities, Social/Behavioral Sciences, and Natural Sciences Interdisciplinary Research Project of Kokoro Research Center from Kyoto University to Y.I. The funders played no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

References

  • 1.Banerjee A, Pasea L, Harris S, Gonzalez-Izquierdo A, Torralbo A, Shallcross L, et al. Estimating excess 1-year mortality associated with the COVID-19 pandemic according to underlying conditions and age: A population-based cohort study. Lancet. 2020;395(10238):1715–25. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30854-0 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 2.Nepogodiev D, Omar OM, Glasbey JC, Li E, Simoes JF, Abbott TE, et al. Elective surgery cancellations due to the COVID-19 pandemic: global predictive modelling to inform surgical recovery plans. Br J Surg. 2020;107(11):1440–9. doi: 10.1002/bjs.11746 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 3.Blumenthal D, Fowler EJ, Abrams M, Collins SR. Covid-19—Implications for the health care system. N Engl J Med. 2020;383(15):1483–8. doi: 10.1056/NEJMsb2021088 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 4.Turale S, Meechamnan C, Kunaviktikul W. Challenging times: ethics, nursing and the COVID-19 pandemic. Int Nurs Rev. 2020;67(2):164–7. doi: 10.1111/inr.12598 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 5.Wang H, Li T, Barbarino P, Gauthier S, Brodaty H, Molinuevo JL, et al. Dementia care during COVID-19. Lancet. 2020;395(10231):1190–1. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30755-8 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 6.Krüger C, Mayer H, Haastert B, Meyer G. Use of physical restraints in acute hospitals in Germany: A multi-centre cross-sectional study. Int J Nurs Stud. 2013;50(12):1599–606. doi: 10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2013.05.005 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 7.Hessler JB, Schäufele M, Hendlmeier I, Junge MN, Leonhardt S, Weber J, et al. Behavioural and psychological symptoms in general hospital patients with dementia, distress for nursing staff and complications in care: results of the General Hospital Study. Epidemiol Psychiatr Sci. 2018;27(3):278–87. doi: 10.1017/S2045796016001098 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 8.Sampson EL, White N, Leurent B, Scott S, Lord K, Round J, et al. Behavioural and psychiatric symptoms in people with dementia admitted to the acute hospital: prospective cohort study. Br J Psychiatry. 2014;205(3):189–96. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.113.130948 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 9.Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare. A manual for no use of physical restraint. [cited 2021 Sep 8]. Available from: https://www.fukushihoken.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/zaishien/gyakutai/torikumi/doc/zero_tebiki.pdf.
  • 10.Mohr WK, Petti TA, Mohr BD. Adverse effects associated with physical restraint. Can J Psychiatry. 2003;48(5):330–7. doi: 10.1177/070674370304800509 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 11.Funayama M, Takata T. Psychiatric inpatients subjected to physical restraint have a higher risk of deep vein thrombosis and aspiration pneumonia. Gen Hosp Psychiatry. 2020;62:1–5. doi: 10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2019.11.003 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 12.Rakhmatullina M, Taub A, Jacob T. Morbidity and mortality associated with the utilization of restraints: A review of literature. Psychiatr Q. 2013;84(4):499–512. doi: 10.1007/s11126-013-9262-6 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 13.Tolson D, Morley JE. Physical restraints: abusive and harmful. J Am Med Dir Assoc. 2012;13(4):311–3. doi: 10.1016/j.jamda.2012.02.004 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 14.van der Steen JT, Radbruch L, Hertogh CM, de Boer ME, Hughes JC, Larkin P, et al. White paper defining optimal palliative care in older people with dementia: A Delphi study and recommendations from the European Association for Palliative Care. Palliat Med. 2014;28(3):197–209. doi: 10.1177/0269216313493685 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 15.Nakanishi M, Nakashima T, Shindo Y, Miyamoto Y, Gove D, Radbruch L, et al. An evaluation of palliative care contents in national dementia strategies in reference to the European Association for Palliative Care white paper. Int Psychogeriatr. 2015;27(9):1551–61. doi: 10.1017/S1041610215000150 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 16.Abraham J, Kupfer R, Behncke A, Berger-Höger B, Icks A, Haastert B, et al. Implementation of a multicomponent intervention to prevent physical restraints in nursing homes (IMPRINT): A pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial. Int J Nurs Stud. 2019;96:27–34. doi: 10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2019.03.017 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 17.Nakanishi M, Okumura Y, Ogawa A. Physical restraint to patients with dementia in acute physical care settings: effect of the financial incentive to acute care hospitals. Int Psychogeriatr. 2018;30(7):991–1000. doi: 10.1017/S104161021700240X [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 18.Crowther GJ, Bennett MI, Holmes JD. How well are the diagnosis and symptoms of dementia recorded in older patients admitted to hospital. Age Ageing. 2017;46(1):112–8. doi: 10.1093/ageing/afw169 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 19.Isogai T, Matsui H, Tanaka H, Fushimi K, Yasunaga H. In-hospital management and outcomes in patients with peripartum cardiomyopathy: a descriptive study using a national inpatient database in Japan. Heart Vessels. 2017;32(8):944–51. doi: 10.1007/s00380-017-0958-7 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 20.Isogai T, Matsui H, Tanaka H, Fushimi K, Yasunaga H. Seasonal variation in patient characteristics and in-hospital outcomes of Takotsubo syndrome: a nationwide retrospective cohort study in Japan. Heart Vessels. 2017;32(10):1271–6. doi: 10.1007/s00380-017-1007-2 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 21.Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. [Reports of a survey, "Discharged Patients Survey," for assessing the effects of introducing DPC, 2018.] 2020 Mar 25. [cited 2020 Dec 3]. Available from: https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/shingi2/0000196043_00003.html. (Japanese)
  • 22.Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. [Dynamic Survey of Medical Institutions and Hospital Report, 2018.] 2018 May 29. [cited 2020 Dec 3]. Available from: https://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/saikin/hw/iryosd/m18/is1802.html. (Japanese)
  • 23.Sharabiani MT, Aylin P, Bottle A. Systematic review of comorbidity indices for administrative data. Med Care. 2012;50(12):1109–18. doi: 10.1097/MLR.0b013e31825f64d0 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 24.Bernal JL, Cummins S, Gasparrini A. Interrupted time series regression for the evaluation of public health interventions: a tutorial. Int J Epidemiol. 2017;46(1):348–55. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyw098 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 25.Alzheimer’s Disease International (2015). World Alzheimer Report. The global impact of dementia. An analysis of prevalence, incidence, cost and trends. London, England: Alzheimer’s Disease International. [cited 2020 Nov 28]. Available from: https://www.alz.co.uk/research/world-report-2015.
  • 26.Alzheimer’s Disease International (2016). World Alzheimer Report. Improving healthcare for people living with dementia. Coverage, quality and costs now and in the future. London, England: Alzheimer’s Disease International. [cited 2020 Nov 28]. Available from: https://www.alz.co.uk/research/WorldAlzheimerReport2016.pdf. [Google Scholar]
  • 27.Timmons S, Manning E, Barrett A, Brady NM, Browne V, O’Shea E, et al. Dementia in older people admitted to hospital: A regional multi-hospital observational study of prevalence, associations and case recognition. Age Ageing. 2015;44(6):993–9. doi: 10.1093/ageing/afv131 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 28.Fogg C, Meredith P, Bridges J, Gould GP, Griffiths P. The relationship between cognitive impairment, mortality and discharge characteristics in a large cohort of older adults with unscheduled admissions to an acute hospital: a retrospective observational study. Age Ageing. 2017;46(5):794–801. doi: 10.1093/ageing/afx022 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 29.White N, Leurent B, Lord K, Scott S, Jones L, Sampson EL. The management of behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia in the acute general medical hospital: A longitudinal cohort study. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2017;32(3):297–305. doi: 10.1002/gps.4463 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 30.Gunawardena R, Smithard DG. The attitudes towards the use of restraint and restrictive intervention amongst healthcare staff on acute medical and frailty wards-a brief literature review. Geriatrics (Basel). 2019;4(3):50. doi: 10.3390/geriatrics4030050 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 31.Font R, Quintana S, Monistrol O. Impact of family restrictions during COVID-19 pandemic on the use of physical restraint in an acute hospital: An observational study]. J Healthc Qual Res. 2021. May 18:S2603-6479(21)00049-X. Spanish. doi: 10.1016/j.jhqr.2021.04.005 Epub ahead of print. ; PMCID: PMC8130495. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 32.University Hiroshima. The pandemic of novel coronavirus infection is worsening the symptoms of people with dementia and increasing the burden of care for their families. 2020. [cited 2020 Nov 7]. Available from: https://www.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/system/files/147388/20200730_pr01.pdf. [Google Scholar]
  • 33.Evans IEM, Llewellyn DJ, Matthews FE, Woods RT, Brayne C, Clare L. Social isolation, cognitive reserve, and cognition in older people with depression and anxiety. Aging Ment Health. 2019;23(12):1691–700. doi: 10.1080/13607863.2018.1506742 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 34.Walton M, Murray E, Christian MD. Mental health care for medical staff and affiliated healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Eur Heart J Acute Cardiovasc Care. 2020;9:241–7. doi: 10.1177/2048872620922795 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 35.Lu W, Wang H, Lin Y, Li L. Psychological status of medical workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study. Psychiatry Res. 2020;288:112936. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2020.112936 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 36.Shimizu K, Lin L. Defamation against healthcare workers during COVID-19 pandemic. Int J Health Policy Manag. 2020. doi: 10.34172/ijhpm.2020.184 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 37.Sandrock CE. Care of the critically ill and injured during pandemics and disasters: groundbreaking results from the Task Force on Mass Critical Care. Chest. 2014;146(4):881–3. doi: 10.1378/chest.14-1900 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 38.Canet E, Amjad S, Robbins R, Lewis J, Matalanis M, Jones D, et al. Differential clinical characteristics, management and outcome of delirium among ward compared with intensive care unit patients. Intern Med J. 2019;49(12):1496–504. doi: 10.1111/imj.14287 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 39.Rosa RG, Tonietto TF, da Silva DB, Gutierres FA, Ascoli AM, Madeira LC, et al. Effectiveness and safety of an extended ICU visitation model for delirium prevention: A before and after study. Crit Care Med. 2017;45(10):1660–7. doi: 10.1097/CCM.0000000000002588 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 40.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Additional COVID-19 guidance for caregivers of people living with dementia in community settings. 2020. [cited 2020 Nov 7]. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/caregivers-dementia.html. [Google Scholar]
  • 41.Cuffaro L, Di Lorenzo F, Bonavita S, Tedeschi G, Leocani L, Lavorgna L. Dementia care and COVID-19 pandemic: a necessary digital revolution. Neurol Sci. 2020;41:1977–9. doi: 10.1007/s10072-020-04512-4 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  • 42.Kuntz JG, Kavalieratos D, Esper GJ, Ogbu N, Mitchell J, Ellis CM, et al. Feasibility and acceptability of inpatient palliative care e-family meetings during COVID-19 pandemic. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2020;60(3):E28–32. doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2020.06.001 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Decision Letter 0

Masaki Mogi

9 Aug 2021

PONE-D-21-19437

Physical restraint of dementia patients in acute care hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cohort analysis in Japan

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Imanaka,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

==============================

The manuscript is well assessed by two reviewers; however, several revisions are required in the present form. See the reviewers' comments carefully and respond them appropriately.

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 23 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

  • A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.

  • A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.

  • An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Masaki Mogi

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf

2. Please report the codes used for extracting the outcome of interest (use of physical restraints) from the database

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: In the background of the study, please describe how dose COVID-19 affect the care of patient with dementia in the hospital? is there visitation restriction? Isolation policy? Relocation of patient with dementia due to COVID case segregation? Manpower shortage? Dose hospital without COVID affected by those regulations?

Please explain what is "136 Hp with 97,233 admissions"

Please explain and elaborate why BMI is choosen as one of the parameter to group patients?

In figure 2, before COVID, hospital takes COVID cases already have higher percentage of restraint in the hospital. Is it because the hospital is less well trained in dementia care? No geriatric specialist? If a hospital already prone to restraint dementia patient (lack of geriatric culture), COVID -19 will only aggregate it. Will be good to explain as this may make the comparison between the hospitals become unfair.

Reviewer #2: General comments

The authors conducted a retrospective cohort study to assess the impact of regulatory changes, consequent to the pandemic, on physical restraint use among elderly dementia patients in acute care hospitals in Japan. Main finding suggests elderly dementia patients who require personal care might be more likely to be physically restrained during the COVID-19 pandemic in hospitals receiving COVID-19-positive patients. The result was notable and very interesting. However, I have some concerns that should be addressed regarding the methodology and interpretation of results.

Specific comments

Major

It would be better to provide more detailed definitions of the state of emergency declaration and Group 1/2. Is the state of emergency nationwide or only for a specific region? Why was the deadline set at July 4, 2020? Did the group 1 receive COVID-19 patients only after the state of emergency was declared or not regardless of the time of declaration?

L.195-205 This second paragraph is a general statement and does not seem to be relevant to the results of this study. Therefore, by changing this paragraph to a comparison of this study with past studies on physical restraint, the authors can make this study more unique. For example, comparing the study of physical restraint with other social changes such as endemics or epidemics of other infectious diseases, disasters, or terrorism.

L.209-222 This paragraph is the reason why physical restraint increased after the COVID-19 pandemic. It does not explain why group 1 has more physical restraints than group 2. This is because if the state of emergency had been declared at the national level, group 2 would have been recommended the same social distance as group 1. If it is due to social distance, the authors should divide the hospitals according to whether they are in an epidemic area or not, not whether they accept COVID-19 patients or not. Smaller hospitals may not be accepting COVID-19 patients even in epidemic areas. It would be better to reconsider the difference in patient factors between Group 1 and Group 2.

L. 223-241 The restriction of visits seems to be done regardless of the acceptance of COVID-19 patients. As stated in L237-240, the changes in the nursing side seems to be a strong factor. It may be better to move L237-240 to the first half of this paragraph and elaborate further.

Minor

It may be easier for readers to read the abstract if it is divided into Introduction, methods, results, and conclusion.

**********

6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PLoS One. 2021 Nov 22;16(11):e0260446. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260446.r002

Author response to Decision Letter 0


2 Oct 2021

Journal Requirements:

PONE-D-21-19437

Physical restraint of dementia patients in acute care hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cohort analysis in Japan

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Imanaka,

Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 23 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf

Response: Thank you for this reminder. I have checked the manuscript and made sure that it complies with the style requirement of your journal.

2. Please report the codes used for extracting the outcome of interest (use of physical restraints) from the database

Response:

The "code" is the Japanese medical fee code and is standardized for all medical institutions. Patients who are judged to have cognitive dysfunction and need special care are given an additional fee for dementia care; however, if physical restraint is used, the additional fee for dementia care is multiplied by 0.6.

Lines 121-122

The following has been added: “Data regarding the use of physical restraint during dementia care were extracted from the payment codes for services.”

*Changes of reference list

Reference 9: remove the previous reference and replace it with relevant current reference

Reference 31: A relatively new report about physical restraining during the COVID-19 pandemic was added, which could be supportive of the result of this study.

Reviewer #1:

Q. In the background of the study, please describe how dose COVID-19 affect the care of patient with dementia in the hospital? is there visitation restriction? Isolation policy? Relocation of patient with dementia due to COVID case segregation? Manpower shortage? Dose hospital without COVID affected by those regulations?

Response: Lines 48-52

Thank you for your comment.

The following has been added: “Social distancing and limiting family visits impacted the hospital care systems in many ways, such as reduced communications with medical staff and family members; these in turn could exacerbate progressive cognitive dysfunction …”

A more detailed description has also been added in the Discussion section regarding this point.

Q. Please explain what is "136 Hp with 97,233 admissions"

Response:Thank you for this comment. I had quoted the number of hospitals and admissions included in our study, which was also shown in Figure 1. However, in the manuscript, I think mentioning the number of hospitals is not absolutely essential and may create confusion as pointed out. Therefore, I have deleted the number of hospitals (Hp).

Q. Please explain and elaborate why BMI is chosen as one of the parameter to group patients?

Response:Thank you for this comment. In order to be able to more easily understand the distribution and missing information from the Table, we categorized the BMI. However, BMI information, including missing or not, is unimportant in the context of this study; hence, it was removed from Table 1.

Q. In figure 2, before COVID, hospital takes COVID cases already have higher percentage of restraint in the hospital. Is it because the hospital is less well trained in dementia care? No geriatric specialist? If a hospital already prone to restraint dementia patient (lack of geriatric culture), COVID -19 will only aggregate it. Will be good to explain as this may make the comparison between the hospitals become unfair.

Response:Lines 255-265

The following has been added: “As shown in Figure 2, hospitals with COVID-19-positive cases already have higher percentages of restraint in the hospital than those before the COVID-19 pandemic. It may be desirable to evaluate the quality of dementia care and the involvement of a geriatric specialist; however, this is not possible owing to a limited database. However, the target population for this study was the inpatients for whom dementia care benefit was calculated. We believe that the quality of care in the two populations is secured to a certain extent because the hospitals need to have staff trained in dementia care and conduct regular care meetings in order to calculate the additional fee. Additionally, since this study uses the impact of COVID-19 as an intervention point to compare the percentage of physical restraint practices in the hospital for each group over time, we believe that this is not a problem.”

(Supplement): Owing to lack of data, I am unable to present the quality of care; nevertheless, I have information regarding the presence of the dementia care team.

Group 1 January 2019 to February 2020 March 2020 to June 2020

Number of patients 80,468 16,765

Cared by dementia care team, n (%) 36193 (45.0) 9127 (54.4)

Group 2 January 2019 to February 2020 March 2020 to June 2020

Number of patients 48,424 10,199

Cared by dementia care team, n (%) 13719 (28.3) 3369 (33.0)

Reviewer #2: General comments

Specific comments

Major

Q. It would be better to provide more detailed definitions of the state of emergency declaration and Group 1/2. Is the state of emergency nationwide or only for a specific region? Why was the deadline set at July 4, 2020? Did the group 1 receive COVID-19 patients only after the state of emergency was declared or not regardless of the time of declaration?

Response:Thank you for this comment. Since this study targeted the first wave, which caused unprecedented disruptions, the study period was up to July, when the reemergence of the infection occurred (July 4 was chosen because we thought it would be preferable to aggregate the data on a weekly basis).

Lines 47-50

The following has been added: “To manage the pandemic, the Japanese government announced hospital restrictions, including those pertaining to family visits, at the end of March 2020. Eventually, a state of emergency was declared for specific areas on 7th Aprill 2020, and implemented nationwide on 16th April, 2020.”

Lines 128-133

The following has been added: “In Japan, hospitals that can accept COVID-19-positive patients were designated by the MHLW. If no COVID-19-positive patients were hospitalized during this study period, we considered that the impact of COVID-19 was small. Therefore, we categorized the study population into two groups: hospitals having at least one COVID-19-positive patient admission during the study period (Group 1) and those having none (Group 2).”

Q. L.195-205 This second paragraph is a general statement and does not seem to be relevant to the results of this study. Therefore, by changing this paragraph to a comparison of this study with past studies on physical restraint, the authors can make this study more unique. For example, comparing the study of physical restraint with other social changes such as endemics or epidemics of other infectious diseases, disasters, or terrorism.

Response: Lines 204-214

The following has been added: “Dementia has increasingly gained importance as a public health concern, and the medical staff in acute care hospitals often needs to provide dementia care to elderly patients [25, 26]. Physical restraint, which is preferably avoided wherever possible, in conformance with worldwide recommendations, is often exercised in acute care settings, especially for elderly patients and those with dementia [7,8,15,27-29]. Physical restraint is exercised to prevent falls and self-extubation owing to the low availability of medical staff and inadequate resources to constantly monitor at-risk patients because of the immense workload [6,30]. There are few reports about changes in the implementation rate of physical restraint due to disasters such as the COVID-19 pandemic. However, one recent observational study showed the possibility of increased use of physical restraint during the COVID-19 pandemic [31], which supports our results.”

Q. L.209-222 This paragraph is the reason why physical restraint increased after the COVID-19 pandemic. It does not explain why group 1 has more physical restraints than group 2. This is because if the state of emergency had been declared at the national level, group 2 would have been recommended the same social distance as group 1. If it is due to social distance, the authors should divide the hospitals according to whether they are in an epidemic area or not, not whether they accept COVID-19 patients or not. Smaller hospitals may not be accepting COVID-19 patients even in epidemic areas. It would be better to reconsider the difference in patient factors between Group 1 and Group 2.

Q. L. 223-241 The restriction of visits seems to be done regardless of the acceptance of COVID-19 patients. As stated in L237-240, the changes in the nursing side seems to be a strong factor. It may be better to move L237-240 to the first half of this paragraph and elaborate further.

Response: The above two questions are related points from the same paragraph and, hence, I would like to respond to them together.

We believe that there could be two reasons for the increase in the use of physical restraint: 1) patient factors due to the spread of COVID-19, and 2) hospital (medical staff) factors. However, as pointed out by the reviewer, reason 1) is not in accordance with the results of this study. Therefore, as pointed out by the reviewer, we focused our discussion on the hospital (medical staff) factors only. As one of the reasons for considering the hospital (medical staff) factor to be strong, I would like to add that although it has been reported that cognitive function of the elderly may worsen with social distancing being implemented nationwide in Japan, we could not point out a reason for the obvious increase in the use of physical restraint in the ITS analysis at the hospitals without any hospitalization of COVID-19-positive patients in this study.

Lines 215-221

The following has been added: “We believe that the main reason for the significantly increased use of physical restraints for elderly dementia patients in only Group 1 during the COVID-19 pandemic was due to factors associated with the quality of care. Although it has been reported that cognitive function of the elderly may worsen with social distancing being implemented nationwide in Japan [32,33], the reason for an obvious increase in the use of physical restraint in the ITS analysis at the hospitals without any hospitalization of COVID-19-positive patients in this study was unclear.”

Lines 225-228

The following has been added: “Owing to the increase in nosocomial infections from February to April, 2020, medical staff were seen as epicenters, and this led to widespread irrational prejudice and discrimination against them in off duty-hours. They were denied use of public vehicles and their children were asked to refrain from attending nursery schools [36].”

Lines 235-242

The following has been added: “Factors associated with the care system, including limiting family visits, might have also possibly affected the result. In Japan, even the state of emergency is not legally binding; therefore, the hospital visit restrictions at hospitals without COVID-19 positive patients might have been more permissive than hospitals with COVID-19-positive patients’ hospitalizations. For dementia patients, communicating with visitors, especially family members, is important to maintain their cognitive function [29,31,38,39]. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines allow care partners to visit patients if they are essential to the patients’ physical or emotional well-being, even during the COVID-19 pandemic [40].”

Minor

It may be easier for readers to read the abstract if it is divided into Introduction, methods, results, and conclusion.

Response

As per your suggestion, the abstract has been divided into sub-headings.

Attachment

Submitted filename: Responce_to_Reviewers.docx

Decision Letter 1

Masaki Mogi

10 Nov 2021

Physical restraint of dementia patients in acute care hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cohort analysis in Japan

PONE-D-21-19437R1

Dear Dr. Imanaka,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Masaki Mogi

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

No further comment.

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #2: No

Acceptance letter

Masaki Mogi

12 Nov 2021

PONE-D-21-19437R1

Physical restraint of dementia patients in acute care hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cohort analysis in Japan

Dear Dr. Imanaka:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org.

If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org.

Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access.

Kind regards,

PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff

on behalf of

Dr. Masaki Mogi

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Associated Data

    This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

    Supplementary Materials

    Attachment

    Submitted filename: Responce_to_Reviewers.docx

    Data Availability Statement

    According to the Ethical Guidelines for Medical and Health Research Involving Human Subjects of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan (a provisional translation is available from https://www.mhlw.go.jp/file/06-Seisakujouhou-10600000-Daijinkanboukouseikagakuka/0000080278.pdf), providing “information” to study subjects is one of the necessary conditions for waiving informed consent. The range of data users is included the “information”. Therefore, the datasets generated during and/or analyzed during this study are available from the corresponding author and Office of Research Promotion, General Affairs and Planning Division, Kyoto University (E-mail: kikaku06@mail2.adm.kyoto-u.ac.jp; Tel: +81-75-753-9301) on reasonable request. The Ethics Committee, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University (e-mail: ethcom@kuhp.kyoto-u.ac.jp) also can help those who need further information regarding the data availability of this study.


    Articles from PLoS ONE are provided here courtesy of PLOS

    RESOURCES