Nurse–Patient Encounters

Nurses and other healthcare providers frequently refer to patients as difficult. The aim of this paper is to foster greater understanding of the phenomenon of describing patients as difficult and to offer nurses an alternate way of viewing and responding to difficulty as it arises. Research findings illustrating that difficulty is constructed in the encounter and by factors in the context of the encounter are presented. These findings are further translated by case illustrations of a harmonious and a difficult encounter. This work provides nurses with knowledge to create environments that favor harmonious encounters, and an alternate way to proceed when difficulty develops.