Personality traits affect anticipatory stress vulnerability and coping effectiveness in occupational critical care situations

Abstract

The present study aimed at investigating the influence of personality on both anticipatory stress vulnerability and the effectiveness of coping strategies in an occupational stressful context. Following assessment of individual personality traits (Big Five Inventory), 147 volunteers were exposed to the anticipation of a stressful event. Anxiety and cardiac reactivity were assessed as markers of vulnerability to anticipatory stress. Participants were then randomly assigned to three groups and subjected to a 5-min intervention: relaxation breathing, relaxation breathing combined with cardiac biofeedback, and control. The effectiveness of coping interventions was determined through the cardiac coherence score achieved during the intervention. Higher neuroticism was associated with higher anticipatory stress vulnerability, whereas higher conscientiousness and extraversion were related to lower anticipatory stress vulnerability. Relaxation breathing and biofeedback coping interventions contributed to improve the cardiac coherence in all participants, albeit with greater effectiveness in individuals presenting higher score of openness to experience. The present findings demonstrated that personality traits are related to both anticipatory stress vulnerability and effectiveness of coping interventions. These results bring new insights into practical guidelines for stress prevention by considering personality traits. Specific practical applications for health professionals, who are likely to manage stressful situations daily, are discussed.

Figure 1

Protocol timeline. STAI-Y: State Anxiety Inventory form A.

Figure 2

Coping interventions. Breathing cursor (left part) and cardiac biofeedback visual interface (right part). The visual cursor driving the inspiration and expiration at 6 breaths/min. The visual biofeedback gave information on instantaneous heart rate (beats/min) and scores of cardiac coherence (emWavePRO® interface, HeartMath technologies, Add Heart®).

Figure 3

Study flowchart.

Figure 4

Personality traits and anticipatory stress. Association between personality traits and psychological (STAI-Y) and physiological anticipatory stress (cardiac reactivity). Green plots represent traits positively associated with a stress-resilience aspect of personality. Red plots represent traits that are positively associated with a stress-vulnerability aspect of personality.

Figure 5

Effectiveness of coping interventions on cardiac coherence score. (a) Overall impact of relaxation breathing (dark blue), relaxation breathing paired with biofeedback (turquoise) and control (grey) on the evolution of the instantaneous score of cardiac coherence. Both coping interventions allows an increase in cardiac coherence scores. (b) Openness trait and cardiac coherence scores. Scatterplot of the relationship between openness and interventions. The grey circles indicate the control group, the dark blue triangles indicate the relaxation breathing group and the turquoise crosses indicate the relaxation breathing paired with biofeedback group. Higher score of openness are associated with higher score of cardiac coherence and so more efficient physiological stress coping (i.e. physiological relaxation).