PERSonality, Ehical, and PROfessional quality of life in Pediatric/Adult Intensive Nurses study: PERSEPRO PAIN study

BACKGROUND: The World Health Organization included burnout syndrome criteria that reduce both professional quality of life and work satisfaction in its 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases in 2019 while nursing bodies have issued action calls to prevent burnout syndrome. Despite this, the effect of social factors, personality traits and cross-interaction on professional quality of life is still unclear. AIM: To reveal the association between ethical climate, personal trait and professional quality of life. METHOD: An online survey of registered nurses working in adult, pediatric or both ICUs. We used the ten-item personality measure based on The Big Five theory and Type-D personality Scale-14 then measured the ethical climate with the Hospital Ethical Climate Survey and the professional domains of burnout syndrome, secondary traumatic stress and compassion satisfaction by the Professional Quality of Life Scale Version 5 simultaneously. Multivariate analysis confirmed the triangular association of hospital ethical climate, personality traits and professional quality of life. RESULT: We enrolled 310 participants from September 2019 to February 2020. Mean age was 33.1 years (± 5.9) and about 70% were female. In the multivariate analysis, neuroticism (p = 0.03, p = 0.01) and Type D personality (both of p<0.01) were associated with burnout syndrome and secondary traumatic stress while agreeableness (p<0.01) was associated with secondary traumatic stress. Conversely, extraversion (p = 0.01), agreeableness (p<0.01) and openness (p<0.01) were associated with compassion satisfaction. We also observed interactions between hospital ethical climate and conscientiousness (p = 0.01) for burnout syndrome and secondary traumatic stress. Neuroticism was related to (p<0.01) BOS and compassion satisfaction while Type D personality (p<0.01) correlated with burnout syndrome and secondary traumatic stress. CONCLUSION: Hospital ethical climate strongly affects professional quality of life in nurses with specific personality traits. Therefore, it is important to maintain an ethical hospital climate, considering individual personalities to prevent burnout syndrome.