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

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 Psychosociological Dictionary. The results revealed no significant correlations between stress and the nurses' demographic or professional backgrounds. However, very specific and significant correlations between certain personality profiles and stress levels were detected. Lexical thematic content analysis indicated that nurses who reported high stress differed significantly from those reporting low stress in the psychological processes they used when caring for interpersonally difficult patients. These findings suggest that the personality construct of Lifestyle plays an important role in regard to the stress response of these nurses. The implications of the findings include the possibility of structuring interventions based on Individual Psychology that may assist nurses to better deal with interpersonal conflict in patient care, and hence to reduce their own stress levels.