The Difficult Family: Conflict Resolution in Healthcare Settings

Course overview

In healthcare practice, encounters with families can sometimes move from supportive collaboration to emotionally charged conflict, whether due to differing expectations, miscommunication, cultural values, prior experiences, or systemic strain. Unresolved family-team conflict carries consequences for patients, clinicians, and organizations, including delayed care decisions, moral distress, burnout, staff turnover, and erosion of trust. This course examines the roots and consequences of family-team conflict, evidence-based strategies for engaging families, a structured approach to high-stakes family meetings, the role of self-reflection and professional conduct, and implications for nursing practice and interprofessional teams in transforming conflict into collaboration.