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. 2011 Aug 15;52(4):538-49.
doi: 10.3325/cmj.2011.52.538.

Personality, organizational stress, and attitudes toward work as prospective predictors of professional burnout in hospital nurses

Jasna Hudek-Knezević  1 , Barbara Kalebić Maglica, Nada Krapić
Affiliations

Personality, organizational stress, and attitudes toward work as prospective predictors of professional burnout in hospital nurses

Jasna Hudek-Knezević et al. Croat Med J. .

Abstract

Aim: To examine to what extent personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness), organizational stress, and attitudes toward work and interactions between personality and either organizational stress or attitudes toward work prospectively predict 3 components of burnout.

Methods: The study was carried out on 118 hospital nurses. Data were analyzed by a set of hierarchical regression analyses, in which personality traits, measures of organizational stress, and attitudes toward work, as well as interactions between personality and either organizational stress or attitudes toward work were included as predictors, while 3 indices of burnout were measured 4 years later as criteria variables.

Results: Personality traits proved to be significant but weak prospective predictors of burnout and as a group predicted only reduced professional efficacy (R(2)=0.10), with agreeableness being a single negative predictor. Organizational stress was positive, affective-normative commitment negative predictor, while continuance commitment was not related to any dimension of burnout. We found interactions between neuroticism as well as conscientiousness and organizational stress, measured as role conflict and work overload, on reduced professional efficacy (βNRCWO=-0.30; βcRCWO=-0.26). We also found interactions between neuroticism and affective normative commitment (β=0.24) and between openness and continuance commitment on reduced professional efficacy (β=-0.23), as well as interactions between conscientiousness and continuance commitment on exhaustion.

Conclusion: Although contextual variables were strong prospective predictors and personality traits weak predictors of burnout, the results suggested the importance of the interaction between personality and contextual variables in predicting burnout.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Reduced professional efficacy according to organizational stress intensity in nurses lower and higher on conscientiousness. Black line – nurses lower on conscientiousness; gray line – nurses higher on conscientiousness.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Reduced professional efficacy according to the intensity of role conflict and work overload in nurses lower and higher on neuroticism. Black line – nurses lower on neuroticism; gray line – nurses with higher on neuroticism.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Reduced professional efficacy according to the intensity of affective-normative commitment in nurses lower and higher on neuroticism. Black line – nurses lower on neuroticism; gray line – nurses higher on neuroticism.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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