Manual restraint, a type of physical restraint, is a common practice in inpatient mental health settings linked to adverse physical and psychological staff and patient outcomes. However, little is known about the use of manual restraint for compulsory nasogastric feeding of patients with anorexia nervosa within inpatient eating disorder settings. The present phenomenological study aimed to explore nursing assistants’ experiences of administering manual restraint for compulsory nasogastric feeding of young persons with anorexia nervosa. The study followed COREQ guidelines. Eight semi‐structured interviews were conducted with eight nursing assistants from one UK inpatient child and adolescent eating disorder service. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis. Three themes were extracted: An unpleasant practice, importance of coping, and becoming desensitized and sensitized. Nursing assistants commonly experienced emotional distress, physical exhaustion, physical injury and physical aggression as a result of their manual restraint use. Nursing assistants appeared to cope with their distress by talking with colleagues and young persons who were further in their recovery, and by detaching themselves during manual restraint incidents. The findings highlight that the use of manual restraint for compulsory nasogastric feeding of young persons with anorexia nervosa in the UK is a highly distressing practice for nursing assistants. It is therefore important that sufficient supervision, support, and training are made available to staff working in these settings.

AimTo explore nursing staff's experiences of using manual (physical) restraint within inpatient adolescent mental health care.DesignThis was a descriptive phenomenological study.MethodsIndividual semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 12 nursing staff between March 2021 and July 2021. The nursing staff were recruited from four inpatient adolescent mental health hospitals across three National Health Service Trusts in England. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using Braun and Clarke's reflexive approach to thematic analysis.ResultsFour themes were generated from the analysis: (1) it needs to be done sometimes; (2) it's not a nice thing to do; (3) it does not really damage the therapeutic relationship; and (4) importance of team support. Despite strongly reporting that it was sometimes necessary to manually restrain young people for substantial safety reasons, participants spoke with dislike about its use, and described consequential aversive experiences of emotional distress, patient aggression, pain and injury, and physical exhaustion. Participants reported relying on each other for emotional and practical support. Three participants reported observing premature restraint use by non‐permanent staff.ConclusionThe findings detail a paradoxical picture of the nursing staff's experiences where restraint is experienced as psychologically and physically aversive yet deemed as sometimes necessary to prevent significant harm.Reporting MethodThe Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR) checklist was used to guide reporting.ImpactThis study suggests a need for the targeting of non‐permanent staff for restraint minimization interventions, and highlights how the treatment of non‐permanent staff by permanent staff may contribute to avoidable restraint practices. The findings indicate several ways in which the staff‐young person therapeutic relationship can be preserved in the context of restraint. However, this needs to be treated with caution given that young people's voices were missing from this study.Patient or Public ContributionThis study focused on nursing staff's experiences.