The relationship between personality and burn out

Objective: The question repeatedly asked is why, under the same working conditions, one individual burns out, whereas another shows no symptoms at all. We sought the answer between nurses, who are considered to be particularly susceptible to the danger of burnout due to the nature of their work.

Methods: This study is carried out with randomly selected 108 nurses working at Derince Training and Research Hospital. Maslach Burnout Inventory and Temperament Character Inventory were applied.

Results: Novelty seeking (NS) and harm avoidance (HA) scores showed positive correlation with high burnout level, it showed negative correlation with persistence (P), self directedness (SD) and cooperation (C) burnout levels. According to the regression analysis performed in order to asses if, the personality characteristics are predictive about burnout level, NS and HA were positive and C was negative predictors of total burnout levels.

Conclusion: This study proved that there was a relationship between the personality characteristics defined by Cloninger and burn out. While analyzing the structuring of the healthcare provider systems, individual specific evaluations and development of personality traits, which are protective against burnout of the individuals as well as the other relevant evaluations, shall be put on the agenda.