Dealing with the Difficult

Course overview

While we hesitate to label patients or others as "difficult," there is no doubt that at some point in nearly everyone's career they will face someone who contributes to creating a situation that is more challenging or difficult to help. This is heightened in healthcare for many reasons that we will discuss in this course. Learning Outcomes: Identify why patients may be difficult Describe staff responses to difficult patients Recognize behaviors related to being difficult State common contributions to difficult behaviors Identify the five parts of the BLAST model Describe what to do in each phase of the BLAST model Recognize the benefits of tracking complaints Recognize the three phases of response to confrontation Identify emotional progress through de-escalation Describe key reactions of staff to achieve de-escalation