"Manual restraint is a form of physical restraint practice, used particularly within inpatient mental health settings, whereby one or more persons restrict the movement of another by manually holding them (Stewart et al., 2009; Stubbs & Paterson, 2011). This differs from mechanical physical restraint which refers to the use of devices (e.g., belts or cuffs) to restrict movement (Care Quality Commission, 2018). Manual restraint is commonly used in conjunction with seclusion and chemical restraint to prevent harm to patients and staff, or to administer medications and other treatments (Chapman et al., 2016; Hawkins et al., 2005; Ryan & Bowers, 2006). For instance, the literature has highlighted the use of manual restraint in response to patient self-harming, aggressive and attempted absconding behaviours (Bowers et al., 2015), and patient medication refusal (Owiti & Bowers, 2011). Concerns have been raised about manual restraint use (Mind, 2013), and internationalguidelines and programmes advocating for its reduction have emerged (e.g., Department of Health, 2014; Mental Health Commission, 2014; O’Hagan et al., 2008; Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, 2016). Within England alone, over 50,000 incidents of manual restraint were recorded between the years of 2016 and 2017 in National Health Service funded secondary mental health, learning disability (LD) and autism services (Collinson, 2017), demonstrating the commonality of manual restraint practice. This study explores nursing assistants’ experiences of administering manual restraint for compulsory nasogastric feeding (CNF) of young persons with anorexia nervosa (AN)."