The multi-scale description of dilute or semi-dilute suspensions involving rods has been successfully accomplished and applied in many scenarios of industrial interest. Many processes involve, however, the flow of rod suspensions in very narrow gaps whose thickness is much smaller than the rod length. In these conditions, the evolution of rod orientation is expected to be affected by confinement effects. In the present work, we propose a multi-scale description of rod orientation in confined conditions and simple shear flows. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.