Student nurses’ personality traits and the nursing profession : part 2

Abstract

Individuals’ attitudes stem partly from their personality traits, which may influence their interpersonal relationships with patients. Although personality traits are somewhat genetically determined, research has found that there are other factors that may influence this, such as self-esteem, family, social and clinical environments, and education. Part one of this article explained the research process of this cross-sectional descriptive study, which assessed the personality traits of two cohorts of nursing/midwifery students (n=116, aged 19–44 years) in their third year of the Diploma/BSc (Hons) programme at the University of Malta (Baldacchino and Galea, 2012). Data were collected in 2006 using the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (Costa and McCrae, 1992c). In part two, the authors demonstrate that students obtained low neuroticism scores, average openness scores, and high agreeableness, extraversion and conscientiousness scores. Irrespective of nursing/midwifery programmes, age and gender, similar mean scores were identified in all five personality domains. These findings are consistent with previous studies, with some exceptions related to significant differences in gender and religiosity. Further larger scale longitudinal research is recommended on nursing/midwifery and allied healthcare students, to exhibit a possible profile pattern across time and other influencing factors.