The relationship between nurses' personality and stress levels reported when caring for interpersonally difficult patients.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the self-reported stress in a group of nurses caring for patients with interpersonally difficult behaviours at four Melbourne hospitals. An examination was undertaken of the role played by the personality construct known as Lifestyle, in nurses' cognitive appraisal of interpersonal stressors. One hundred and ten nurses completed the Basic Adlerian Scales for Interpersonal Success, Adult Version (BASIS-A) personality inventory and the Difficult Patient Questionnaire (DPQ) and a subgroup of 40 nurses were subsequently interviewed. The interviews were analysed with the Alexis lexical thematic content analysis computer program using the Harvard III Psycho..