title: Six years of national mental health seclusion data: the Australian experience.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Reducing or eliminating seclusion from mental health care settings has been a national priority for Australia since 2005. This paper describes Australia's national seclusion data collection, and summarises changes in seclusion rates in Australian public mental health services.
  
  
  METHODS
  Seclusion events per 1000 patient days were calculated from 2009-2010 to 2014-2015 utilising state and territory administrative data sources. Combined national data were used to calculate results for a number of service characteristics, such as target population and location of the service.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The rate of seclusion events decreased by 43% over the 6 years. Child and adolescent services reported consistently higher rates of seclusion, but a shorter duration of seclusion episodes, compared with other service types. There is high variation in seclusion rates between individual services (range 0.0-53.0 seclusion events per 1000 bed days in 2014-2015).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Seclusion event rates in Australia's specialised public acute mental health hospital services are declining. The use of existing administrative data was instrumental in establishing a national data source to facilitate the monitoring and reporting of progress of seclusion reduction strategies.
authors.affiliation: Chief Psychiatrist, Department of Health Queensland and Chair, Safety and Quality Partnership Standing Committee, Herston, QLD, Australia.
authors.forename: John A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Allan
authors.affiliation: Unit Head, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
authors.forename: Gary D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Hanson
authors.affiliation: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
authors.forename: Nicole L
authors.initials: NL
authors.lastname: Schroder
authors.affiliation: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
authors.forename: Anna J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: O'Mahony
authors.affiliation: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
authors.forename: Roxanne M P
authors.initials: RMP
authors.lastname: Foster
authors.affiliation: Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, and; Chair, Mental Health Information Strategy Standing Committee, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Grant E
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Sara
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D016497:Adolescent Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000328:Adult; D001315:Australia; D002648:Child; D002662:Child Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006761:Hospitals / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D009313:National Health Programs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010356:Patient Isolation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
keywords: Australia; mental health; seclusion