Empathy, Affect and Personality as Predictors of Engagement in Nursing Professionals

Abstract

Background: It seems that personality traits affect engagement and the quality of professional life, which is mediated by the emotional and affective states of nursing personnel. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to analyze the relationships between the components of empathy, affect, personality, and engagement, find personality profiles, identify the variables with the most explanatory value, and analyze the mediating role of the variables susceptible to intervention in the relationship between personality and the components of engagement. Methods: A sample of 1268 nurses completed the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, 10-item Big Five Inventory, Basic Empathy Scale, and Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. Results: Empathy, affect, and personality influence engagement factors in nurses. The vigor and absorption factors of engagement showed a positive relationship with empathy, positive affect, and all of the Big Five personality factors except neuroticism with which the relationship was negative. Personality affected the vigor, dedication, and absorption factors of engagement, and cognitive empathy mediated this relationship. Conclusions: This study shows the need to continue investigating the factors that affect and mediate in engagement of nursing professionals.

Work Engagement: Organizational Attribute or Personality Trait?

“…The results show that the Big Five-type general personality traits had some predictive capacity over work engagement (Bakker et al, 2012;Bhatti et al, 2018;Hau & Bing, 2018;Martos Martínez et al, 2021;Zaidi et al, 2013), although that capacity improved notably when specific traits of enterprising personality were also used. These results are consistent with previous studies (Leutner et al, 2014;Postigo et al, 2021;Rauch & Frese, 2007) that showed how the evaluation of more specific behaviors more accurately expressed a specific behavioral description and could predict criteria that were closely linked to that description (John et al, 2008;Soto & John, 2017).…”

“…Ramírez-García et al ( 2019) considered two factors related to worker happiness, one which included a worker's personal factors, and the other which was about aspects of work environment. Personal happiness slightly increased the prediction of work engagement, because there are certain aspects related to happiness and wellbeing that are not only explained by personality and which lead the employee to be engaged with their work (Fisher, 2010;Martos-Martínez et al, 2021;Salas-Vallina et al, 2017).…”

“…The aim of the present study was to examine the influence of personal resources (general and specific personality traits, emotional intelligence, and personal happiness) and contextual resources (work-related happiness and organizational climate) on employees' engagement with their work. The study has shown that, on the one hand, both personal and work-related resources have some kind of impact and are predictors of work engagement, with the balance tipped towards the personal factors (Bakker et al, 2011;Bakker & Oerlemans, 2019;Laguna et al, 2017;Lisbona et al, 2018;Martos Martínez et al, 2021) and, on the other hand, that organizational components play a moderating role between certain personal variables and a person's engagement (Quiñones et al, 2013;Southwick et al, 2019).…”

“…When workers develop and use their personal resources, they tend to exhibit greater work engagement (Airilia et al, 2014;Bhatti et al, 2018;Schaufeli & Taris, 2014). Emotional intelligence demonstrates a positive effect on work engagement (Barreiro & Treglown, 2020;Brunetto et al, 2012;Extremera et al, 2018;Ravichandran et al, 2011;Zhu et al, 2015), as does a positive affective experience in the workplace (Fisher, 2010;Martos Martínez et al, 2021;Salas-Vallina et al, 2017). Emotional intelligence and personal happiness may act as resources that allow employees to enthusiastically deal with the demands of work and encourage work engagement (Cohn et al, 2009).…”

“…This is why it is important to distinguish between studies focusing on broad, Big Five-type, personality traits and those which use more specific personality traits. Various studies have found positive relationships between work engagement and general personality traits (Bakker et al, 2012;Bhatti et al, 2018;Hau & Bing, 2018;Martos Martínez et al, 2021;Zaidi et al, 2013), with agreeableness being the trait with the weakest relationship to work engagement (Janssens et al, 2019;Kim et al, 2009). Other authors have used specific personality traits to examine the relationship with work engagement.…”