Well-being of Emergency Room Nurses: Role of Neuroticism, Extraversion and Job Stress

Objective: To investigate whether neuroticism and extraversion predicted job-related affective wellbeing of people working under stressful conditions, notably emergency room nurses. Also, to investigate whether perceived job stress mediated the relationship between neuroticism, extraversion and job-related affective well-being. Methods: A cross-sectional survey design was administered to 242 nurses working at an emergency room in Tehran, Iran, recruited through census sampling, including two sub-scales of the NEO Five-Factor Inventory, the Job-Related Affective Well-Being Scale, and the Job Stress Questionnaire. Structural Equation Modelling was deployed for data analysis using SPSS Amos v22.0 and PROCESS macro for SPSS, setting significance threshold at p<.05. Results: Direct and statistically significant effects of neuroticism (β = -.17, p<.005) and extraversion (β = .41, p<.001) on perceived job stress were found, as well as a negative effect of extraversion on job-related affective well-being (β = -.27, p<.001). Perceived job stress was found to negatively predict job-related affective well-being (β = -0.60, p<.001). There was no significant relationship between neuroticism and job-related affective well-being. The mediating effect of perceived job stress was supported (p<.001). Conclusion: Results have theoretical implications for research about the relationship between personality traits and job-related well-being of employees working under stressful conditions. As for practical implications, hospital managers might implement workplace interventions to enhance nurses’ job-related affective well-being and reduce nurses’ job stress. In this context, extraversion and job stress should be understood as psychosocial risk factors, whereas neuroticism should be conceived as a protective factor against job stress.