 Hi guys. So today I wanted to talk about some tips on dealing with or working with angry patients. It's something you're going to come across of with, I don't know, in your nursing career you're going to deal with patients who are angry. And it's important to know how to communicate to all different types of patients, but especially patients who are angry. So first and foremost, number one thing, my number one tip is your safety. You have to be safe. I'm not saying that every patient that's angry is also going to be violent, but you have the potential for it to get there. Or depending on the type of patient it could. So you really have to make sure that you're safe. Pay attention to your positioning in rooms. This may not be something that you think about often, but it's something that you should think about. But where is your back turned to? And do you have an exit? So when I'm talking with someone, especially if they're angry or agitated, you always want to make sure that you have an exit out. The next thing is don't be afraid to bring in a co-worker or your manager or call security if things are starting to get heated. Because just having that backup support, even if you don't need it, it's important to have that there for your safety. Okay, so now that I got the safety talk out of the way, some tips for talking with angry patients. So my tip is a lot of times when people are angry, they're not necessarily angry at you. They're angry at a situation or something else. So listen to them. Honestly, sometimes they just want to vent and by their way of venting, they're yelling or maybe a little hostile. Listen to them, let them vent and don't try to kind of interject. A lot of times that will take care of the situation in itself, just being a listening ear. The next thing is you always want to try and de-escalate the situation. You never want to play into it where it's going to escalate it. So if you're getting frustrated and they're frustrated, you're going to just kind of build up this tension in the situation and it's not going to be necessarily a healthy outcome. So keeping your calm, not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with whatever they're saying and just kind of being a neutral person, trying to work them back to being calm rather than asking maybe protruding questions or saying things that you know would upset them more. It's a hard thing to try and put a finger on. It's hard to explain how to de-escalate the situation but really the main thing is just you being calm and being like a neutral zone. So sometimes when someone's angry they'll be like, well, what do you think about that? And don't you think that was wrong? And instead of like saying, oh yeah, that was so wrong and escalating it or like, no, that wasn't wrong, you're crazy and escalating the situation saying something more along the lines of, yeah, I could see how you're really frustrated over the situation or I can see that that situation made you upset or that person made you upset. Trying to not necessarily agree or disagree but just relay whatever emotion they're portraying or whatever situation they're frustrated by kind of repeating in different words to show that you are actually listening to them. Next thing I like to do when someone's really angry is not necessarily offer any tips of advice or words of wisdom but offering what I can do about the situation right then and there. So if a patient's frustrated because a doctor did something to them well, I can say, well, how about I grab my manager or whatever your protocol is at the hospital and you can report that to them or if they're frustrated because their lunch took too long to get there. I try to do what I can within my power to explain to them how we can make this better or maybe they're frustrated because the previous nurse didn't give their medication on time and instead of like throwing that nurse out of the bus or agreeing with the situation, disagreeing with it I like to talk about what we can do to make it better right now and sometimes I'll even ask patients that like, what would you like me to do right now that's within my power to help this situation and obviously it has to be realistic a lot of times if you just listen to patients and then you kind of offer maybe some next steps of how we can make this better then it kind of can make them feel better to have a plan a lot of patients just like to have a plan if they're frustrated over this situation okay well let's, I see that you're frustrated this is a new day or that's an old situation this is what we're gonna do moving forward to make it better we're gonna start by, we'll order your lunch earlier because you're upset that it took too long I will call and make sure that there's an order confirmation for your lunch and in the meantime how about I bring you some snacks or something else to drink so that way you're kind of tied over this is a hard skill to learn I am not a confrontational person and a lot of times this takes time to get used to in learning kind of what you're allowed to do what you're allowed to say how to talk to certain people at the end of the day as much as we take a lot as nurses patients they yell at us and they're frustrated but you don't deserve to be bullied you can be a listening ear for someone but you don't deserve to be bullied or mistreated by patients so that's a really fine line sometimes and the best thing I can say is talk to your managers bring other people in the room so that way you have that support and it's okay for you to tell patients please don't talk to me like that I'm treating you with respect please treat me with respect that's totally an okay thing to say now if you have someone that's maybe beyond that tipping point and that's going to tip them over the edge maybe not the best time but you deserve respect you don't deserve to be threatened you don't deserve to be attempted or even you know if it fell through but hit or punch or anything like that you are a human being just because you're a nurse doesn't mean you need to take a beating so that's my words of advice I hope you guys took something out of it and if you have any other questions leave them down below make sure you give this video a thumbs up and are subscribed to my channel and I'll see you next time bye