Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39814805›Full record

ArticleScientific reports2025

Characterizing the patient experience of physical restraint in psychiatric settings via a linguistic, sentiment, and metaphor analysis.

Cristiano Nichini, Chiara Barattieri di San Pietro, Biagio Scalingi, Eleonora Alecci, Luca Toschi, Simone Cavallotti, Anna Chiara Cigognini, Federico Durbano, Silvia Ferraris, Patrizia Santinon and 8 more

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Scientific reports, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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0cells of the map it votes in
0citing papers in PubMed
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1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

18 authors.

Cristiano NichiniDepartment of Mental Health and Addiction, ASST Pavia, Pavia, Italy.
Chiara Barattieri di San PietroLaboratory of Neurolinguistics and Experimental Pragmatics (NEP), University School for Advanced Studies IUSS, Piazza della Vittoria 15, Pavia, 27100, Italy. chiara.barattieridisanpietro@iusspavia.it.
Biagio ScalingiLaboratory of Neurolinguistics and Experimental Pragmatics (NEP), University School for Advanced Studies IUSS, Piazza della Vittoria 15, Pavia, 27100, Italy.
Eleonora AlecciSapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
Luca ToschiFaculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
Simone CavallottiDepartment of Mental Health and Addiction, ASST Santi Paolo e Carlo, Milan, Italy.
Anna Chiara CigogniniDepartment of Health Sciences, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy.
Federico DurbanoDepartment of Mental Health and Addiction, ASST Melegnano e della Martesana, Melegnano, Italy.
Silvia FerrarisDepartment of Mental Health ASL VC - ASL BI - ASL VCO, Omegna, VB, Italy.
Patrizia SantinonCentre for Care and Community Studies in Medical Humanities DAIRI, Azienda Ospedaliero-universitaria, Alessandria, Italy.
Chiara PompeiLaboratory of Neurolinguistics and Experimental Pragmatics (NEP), University School for Advanced Studies IUSS, Piazza della Vittoria 15, Pavia, 27100, Italy.
Federico FrauLaboratory of Neurolinguistics and Experimental Pragmatics (NEP), University School for Advanced Studies IUSS, Piazza della Vittoria 15, Pavia, 27100, Italy.
Veronica MangiaterraLaboratory of Neurolinguistics and Experimental Pragmatics (NEP), University School for Advanced Studies IUSS, Piazza della Vittoria 15, Pavia, 27100, Italy.
Luca BischettiLaboratory of Neurolinguistics and Experimental Pragmatics (NEP), University School for Advanced Studies IUSS, Piazza della Vittoria 15, Pavia, 27100, Italy.
Marta BosiaSchool of Medicine, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy.
Gianluca PeschiASST Lecco, Lecco, Italy.
Pierluigi PolitiDepartment of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy.
Valentina BambiniLaboratory of Neurolinguistics and Experimental Pragmatics (NEP), University School for Advanced Studies IUSS, Piazza della Vittoria 15, Pavia, 27100, Italy.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Physical Restraint (PR) is a coercive procedure used in emergency psychiatric care to ensure safety in life-threatening situations. Because of its traumatic nature, studies emphasize the importance of considering the patient's subjective experience. We pursued this aim by overcoming classic qualitative approaches and innovatively applying a multilayered semiautomated language analysis to a corpus of narratives about PR collected from 99 individuals across seven mental health services in Italy. Compared to a reference corpus, PR narratives were characterized by reduced fluency and lexical density, yet a greater use of emotional and cognitive terms, verbs, and first-person singular pronouns. Sadness was the most represented emotion, followed by anger and fear. One-third of the PR narratives contained at least one metaphor, with Animals and War/Prison as the most distinctive source domains. The quality and length of the PR experience impacted both the structure and the sentiment of the narratives. Findings confirm the distressful nature of PR but also point to the use of various linguistic mechanisms which might serve as an early adaptive response toward healing from the traumatic experience. Overall, the study highlights the importance of Natural Language Processing as an unobtrusive window into subjective experience, offering insights for therapeutic choices.

Indexed as

Mental DisordersMetaphorRestraint, PhysicalAdultEmotionsFemaleHumansItalyLinguisticsMaleMiddle AgedNarrationNatural Language ProcessingCoercionMetaphorMetaphor analysisNatural language processingPhysical restraintPTSDSentiment analysis

Identifiers

PMID39814805
PMCPMC11735808

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.