First in Elaziğ city difficult patient in stepped health institutions vision frequency and effect on health personnel

Due to the nature of health services, healthcare staff work in an always tense environment. Therefore, the health sector is an area where communication impairment and communication conflicts have been experienced very intensely. The determiner of the nature of the relationship is sometimes the characteristics of healthcare workers and sometimes the characteristics of the patients. Patients who apply to health institutions for health services are usually not satisfied with the medical care they receive and are forcing healthcare workers. Although there is no definite definition dealing with the difficult patient concept, all definitions made have shown differences and diversity within the framework of social cases, and a wide range of literature knowledge has been created on this subject. The most general definition we have been encountered in the literature is the characterization of patients with behaviors that interfere with communication as "difficult patient." The "difficult patient" expression is labeling made by healthcare workers. Identifying difficult patients first and then continuing treatment with developed coping strategies are essential in terms of both healthcare staff, patients, and the quality of the health service provided. The purpose of the research carried out in this context is the determination of sociodemographic and characteristic features of difficult patients whom healthcare staff encountered the most, evaluation of the dimensions of Patient Difficulty, Personnel Discomfort, Compliance and Communication Problems, and Seductive Behaviors during difficult patient encounters, detection of difficult patient prevalence and evaluation of methods of coping with difficult patients. In line with the determined aim, a 40-question Difficult Patient Questionnaire was created by examining the Difficult Patient-Physician Questionnaire of Hanh et al. (1996) and Kistler's (2011) Difficult Patient Interaction Questionnaire, and it was applied to 248 healthcare personnel (physician, midwife-nurse and others) working in primary health care institutions in Elazig city center(%92,5). Ethical and necessary permissions have been obtained According to the study findings, it was determined that difficult patients were mostly males, in the young-adult age range, primary-secondary school graduate, at middle socioeconomic level, a homemaker ,officer, married and urban patients. Besides, it was shown that difficult patients were patients who were challenging, tiring, with a difficult personality, with unreasonable expectations, annoying, aggressive, very time consuming to maintain, reacting to symptoms that develop during treatment, coming with little problems, and trying to direct healthcare personnel to make their requests. In primary health care institutions in Elazig city center, the difficult patient incidence was found to be approximately 30% (29,5± 1,879). It was established that healthcare staff formed various coping methods that differed concerning gender, occupation, and marital status.