Patient with borderline personality disorder and intellectual impairment. Case report

The care of patients with behavioral problems presents many challenges to emergency unit staff. This case report describes the authors' experience caring for a patient with borderline personality disorder and intellectual impairment, whose frequent emergency unit (EU) visits were characterized by severe behavioral difficulties. The authors describe the use of an emergency care contract that helped improve the quality of the patient's required EU visits. Comments regarding the usefulness of functional health pattern assessment and nursing diagnoses in emergency nursing practice are also given.