The relationship between coping styles and personality traits in nurses

Objective: Coping style and personality are related with stress management and became intriguing subjects for different disciplines interested in “stress”, such as psychiatry, psychology, occupation management, business management, economics etc. This study aims to investigate the relationship between coping styles, temperament and character traits and anxiety and depression scores in nurses.

Methods: 94 nurses are included to the study. Sociodemographical data form, Temperament and Character Inventory by Cloninger, Coping Styles Scale and Hospital Anxiety and depression scale are performed.

Results: Lower harm avoidance scores and higher persistence and cooperativeness scores were predictors of self-confident style. Lower harm avoidance and higher cooperativeness scores were predictors of optimistic style. Higher harm avoidance, reward dependence, and self-transcendence scores were predictors of helpless style. The only predictor for submissive style was higher harm avoidance scores and for social support seeking style was higher reward dependence.

Conclusion: This study presents temperament and character traits as predictors of coping styles. Especially harm avoidance was highlighted in this study with its relation to unsatisfactory coping styles as submissive and helpless style and so anxiety and depression scores. Investigation of different dimensions of the relations between personality and coping may be subject for further studies.