The Role of Neuroticism in Predicting Psychological Harassment in Nursing: A Longitudinal Study

Joana Fornés-Vives, Dolores Frias-Navarro, Gloria García-Banda and Marcos Pascual-Soler
Additional contact information
Joana Fornés-Vives: Department of Nursing and Physiotherapy, University of Balearic Islands. Ctra Valldemossa km 7.5, Palma de Mallorca 07122, Spain
Dolores Frias-Navarro: Department of Methodology of the Behavioural Sciences, University of Valencia. Av. de Blasco Ibáñez, 21, Valencia 46010, Spain
Gloria García-Banda: Department of Psychology, University of Balearic Islands. Ctra Valldemossa km 7.5, Palma de Mallorca 07122, Spain
Marcos Pascual-Soler: ESIC Business & Marketing School. Av. de Blasco Ibáñez, 55, Valencia 46021, Spain

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 5, 1-8

Abstract: Psychological harassment is a serious occupational risk for nurses, but little is known about its related factors and possible predictors. The objective of the present study was to investigate whether nursing students’ neuroticism trait and coping styles can predict psychological harassment at work when they later become nurses. A non-experimental, longitudinal, three-wave prospective study with a time lag of 6 years was carried out, following nursing students from three Spanish universities until they joined the health labor market. The age range of the sample was 20–48 years, and the mean age was 26.99 ± 5.72; the majority of the sample were women (88.5%). Predictor variables were neuroticism and coping styles (emotional and behavioral coping). The criterion variable was psychological harassment. To examine the model fit between the predictor and criterion variables, we conducted structural equation modelling. Results confirmed a high correlation between neuroticism and psychological harassment. In addition, a direct effect of neuroticism on psychological harassment was found; however, emotional and behavioral coping styles did not show a good fit. Proactive interventions to improve emotional self-control are needed in order to prevent negative effects of psychological harassment at work on nurses.

Keywords: behavioral coping; emotional coping; harassment; neuroticism; nursing; personality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/5/889/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/5/889/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:5:p:889-:d:212871

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().