Cristina Queirós

Elizabete Borges

Margarida Abreu

Patrícia Baptista

Pilar Mosteiro

Vanda Felli

Repositório Aberto da Universidade do Porto

Work engagement and personality traits among nurses Cristina Queirós1, Elizabete Borges2, Margarida Abreu2, Pilar Mosteiro3, Patrícia Baptista4 & Vanda Felli4  1.FPCEUP, Portugal   2. ESEP, Portugal    3.FMCS-Univ. Oviedo, Spain   4.EE-Univ.S. Paulo, Brasil 1. Background Nurses are considered individuals engaged with their profession and altruistic persons with vocation for caregiving (Eley et al., 2011, 2012), thus, presenting specific personality traits. Research shows a relationship between personality and work role performance (Ellershaw et al., 2016), and some personality traits such as resilience are related with engagement among nurses (Othman et al., 2013). 2. Aims To know engagement levels among nurses, to identify Eysenck personality traits, and to analyze the relationship between engagement and personality and their variations according socio-demographic and professional characteristics. Data were collected after formal institutions’ authorization, using an anonymous questionnaire composed by sociodemographic questions, and Portuguese versions of EPQ (Eysenck & Eysenck,1996; Sandin et al.,2002) and UWES (Schaufeli & Bakker,2003; Marques-Pinto & Picado, 2011). Participated voluntary 355 Portuguese nurses, 70% female, 50% married,  67% work in hospitals (25% work in health units and 8% in other health contexts such as private clinics and elderly care units),  62% work by shifts, 69% have a definitive job contract, and 72% considered their job as stressful. Age varied between 22 and 60 years (M= 34,4  SD=8,34) and job experience between 1 and 37 years (M=11,5  SD=8,20).  5. Conclusions Despite the sample presented high work engagement, extroversion and conformity, weak relationship between some engagement and Eysenck personality traits was found, suggesting that these traits are not the most important.  However engagement is important for nurses’ social support (Othman & Nasurdin, 2013). In the future, other traits such as big five must be considered, as well job characteristics, which can affect work engagement (Ellershaw  et al., 2016; Santos et al., 2016), a topic that INT-SO project tries to study this relationship on Portugal, Spain and Brazil.  References 4. Results Despite 72% considered their job as stressful, work engagement presents high levels of vigor, dedication and absorption (Table 1). Personality traits reveal more extraversion and conformity, and less psychoticism and neuroticism. Age correlates negatively with extraversion and psychoticism, while neuroticism correlates negatively with age and job experience, and job experience correlates positively with conformity. Vigor and dedication correlates negatively with psychoticism and neuroticism.  According comparative analysis, shifts, job stress perception and workplace affect engagement and personality traits (Table 2), with nurses working by fixed sifts showing more engagement, but also having stronger psychoticism than professionals working by rotating shifts. Nurses who perceived their job as stressful showed less engagement and more neuroticism. Regarding workplace, heath units’ professionals presented more engagement an less neuroticism, while other health contexts’ professionals showed less engagement and more neuroticism.  Regression analyses revealed that personality traits explain only 7% of vigor and 9% of dedication (Table 3). Sociodemographic and professional variables aren’t significant predictors of engagement, only increasing nearby 5% to the total predicted value. 3. Method  - Eley, D. & Eley, R. (2011). Personality traits of Australian nurses and doctors: Challenging stereotypes? International Journal of Nursing Practice, 17, 380-387. - Eley, D., Eley, R., Bertello, M. & Rogers-Clark, C.  (2012). Why did I become a nurse? Personality traits and reasons for entering nursing. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 68(7), 1546-1555.  - Ellershaw, J., Fullarton, C., Rodwell, J. & McWilliams, J. (2016). Conscientiousness, openness to experience and extraversion as predictors of nursing work performance: a facet-level analysis. Journal of Nursing Management, 24, 244-252. - Eysenck, H. J., & Eysenck, S. B. G. (1996). Manual of the Eysenck Personality Scales. London: Hodder & Stoughton. - Marques Pinto, A. & Picado, L. (2011). Adaptação e Bem-Estar nas Escolas Portuguesas: Dos Alunos aos Professores. Lisboa: Coisas de Ler.  - Othman, N. & Nasurdin, A. (2013). Social support and work engagement: a study of Malaysian nurses. Journal of Nursing Management, 21, 1083-1090 - Othman, N., Ghazali, Z. & Ahmad, S. (2013). Resilience and work engagement: a stitch to nursing care quality. Journal of Global Management, 6(1), 40-48. - Sandin, B., Valiente, R., Chorot, P., Olmedo, M. & Santed, M. (2002). Version española del questionario EPQR-abreviado (EPQR-A) (I): análisis exploratorio de la estructura factorial. Revista de Psicopatologia y Psicologia Clínica, 7(3), 195-205). - Santos, A., Chambel, M.J. & Castanheira, F. (2016). Relational job characteristics and nurses’ affective organizational commitment: the mediating role of work engagement. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 72 (2), 294-305. - Schaufeli, W. & Bakker, A. (2003). UWES: Utrecht, work engagement scale preliminary manual. Utrecht: Occupational Health Psychology Unit, Utrecht University. There are no conflicts of interests for any authors. cqueiros@fpce.up.pt         elizabete@esenf.pt 

Work engagement and personality traits among nurses

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Work engagement and personality traits among nurses

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