Nurses' caring behavior based on personality in Indonesia: A pilot study for better-humanized healthcare services.

Abstract

Background: Caring behavior is influenced by psychological factors, including the characteristics of personality. However, psychological test results for nurses’ recruitment are not optimal for nursing resource development. This study aimed to determine the relationship between personality characteristics and nurses’ caring behavior in hospitals.Design and methods: A cross-sectional design was adopted involving 153 nurses of a private hospital in Jakarta selected by convenience sampling technique. Data were also collected from the Caring Behavior Inventory (CBI-24) and Myers-Briggs Type Indicators (MBTI) test results. Statistical analysis using the oneway ANOVA to identify differences in nurses’ CBI scores based on MBTI personality.Results: The results study indicate that most of the nurses were traditionalists (75.16%), and the average CBI score (85.43±5.94) was equivalent to 85%, which means that nurses’ caring behavior was good. There were differences in the scores of caring behaviors among personality characteristics; however, these differences were not statistically significant (p=0.320; α=0.05). Furthermore, the post hoc test analysis showed that the conceptualizer nurses had the highest caring behavior score, while the experiencers had the lowest.Conclusions: Personality characteristics, as measured by MBTI, are not related to the caring behavior of nurses. One possible reason for this result is that the MBTI does not specifically measure caring personality. Psychological tests on personality characteristics are used in career development and nurse placement. This study recommends that human resource management in healthcare use more specific tools to measure caring personality and psychological tests in healthcare staff recruitment for betterhumanized healthcare services. Significance for public health Nurses interact with patients 24 hours a day and more often than other health workers, so patient satisfaction with nursing services is used as an indicator to assess the quality of health services. However, patient satisfaction with nursing services in Indonesia is still low. Patient satisfaction with nursing services is closely related to the behavior displayed by nurses when providing care. Internal factors that influence nurses include personality, emotional intelligence, and motivation. Personal characteristics or personality is an internal factor that plays a role in shaping the caring behavior of nurses. Caring behavior is influenced by psychological factors, including personality characteristics that are measured using psychological tests in some hospitals. However, the psychological test results of nurse recruitment have not been optimal for the development of nursing resources. This study shows that the personality characteristics as measured by Myers-Briggs Type Indicators, are not related to the caring behavior of nurses. This study can provide new insights for human resource management in healthcare to use more specific tools to measure caring personality, in addition to psychological tests, in healthcare staff recruitment for better-humanized healthcare services.