Coping with troublesome clients in home care

I describe methods used by home carers to cope with troublesome clients and analyze how the organizational context affects their use. Empirical data consist of participant observation and field interviews with 14 home carers in three municipalities in southern Sweden. Home carers might try to avoid working with troublesome clients, prepare themselves mentally before visiting them, try to withhold them psychologically, try to understand them and explain their behavior, try to change their behavior, and vent experiences with colleagues. Although some of these methods are practiced frontstage, in interactions with clients, others take place backstage, only involving staff. Their use is influenced both by properties of frontstage work, for instance, the intimate nature of many tasks and the experienced need to keep up a "good" relationship with clients, and by the organization of backstage work, for instance, the organization of staff meetings and supervisors' understanding of coping processes.