Restraint Of Combative Patient: Nurse's Painful Pinch To Release Patient's Grip Was Not Abusive, Court Rules

Restraint Of Combative Patient: Nurse's Painful Pinch To Release Patient's Grip Was Not Abusive, Court Rules

Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession

January 1997

This registered nurse’s conduct, when she pinched the inside of a combative patient’s upper arm to get the patient to release her grip on another nurse, was at worst an indiscretion or a good-faith error in professional judgment.

It was not intentional abuse of a patient. It was not sufficiently severe, under the circumstances, to amount to intentional disregard of the professional standards of conduct which an institution has the right to expect from professional nursing staff. COURT OF APPEALS OF ARKANSAS, 1996.

Two female registered nurses were among several personnel trying to apply physical restraints to an intoxicated alcoholic female patient who was described as assaultive and combative in the court record of the Court of Appeals of Arkansas.

The patient had hold of both of one of the nurse’s hands and would not let go. The patient’s finger nails were scratching and puncturing the nurse’s hands. The other nurse got the patient to release her grip, by administering a painful pinch to the inside of the patient’s upper arm. Both nurses were fired for abuse of the patient.

The court stated that what the nurse did under the circumstances was not patient abuse or intentional disregard of expected standards for professional nursing, and ruled that the nurses should not have been fired. The court disapproved of this tactic for handling patients, but did not say what would have been more appropriate. Thomas vs. Director, Employment Security Department, 931 S.W. 2d 146 (Ark. App., 1996).