The difficult patient: an attachment perspective

Stressors such as illness, injury and hospitalisation are likely to activate attachment behaviours. The way people react to these stressors (i.e. their illness behaviour) varies widely and is strongly correlated with their attachment style. In this paper we briefly review attachment theory, with reference to difficult patient behaviours, including compulsive self-reliance, compulsive care seeking and rejection of staff coupled with exaggerated help-seeking behaviour. We conclude by suggesting simple interventions that can easily be applied to enable staff to cope, and thus to be more able to help patients with difficult illness behaviours. Keywords: illness behaviour, attachment theory, difficult patient, help-seeking behaviour SA Fam Pract 2003;45(8):11-1