Reality Meets Belief: A Mixed Methods Study on Character Strengths and Well-Being of Hospital Physicians

Abstract

Positive psychology deals with factors that make life most worth living and focuses on enhancing individual potentials. Particularly, character strengths can positively contribute to well-being and work-related health, bearing a promising potential for professions, such as physicians, who are at risk for burnout or mental illnesses. This study aims to identify beneficial character strengths by examining the quantitative and qualitative data. In a cross-sectional multi-method study, 218 hospital physicians completed an online survey assessing their character strengths and their general and work-related well-being, comprising thriving, work engagement, and burnout dimensions (outcome variables). Quantitative data were analyzed for the total sample and by tertiary split. Additionally, interview-gathered opinions of four resident physicians and four medical specialist educators were collected to expand the perspective on which character strengths might be beneficial for the well-being of the resident physicians. The highest significant correlations between character strengths and outcome variables were found for hope and thriving (r = 0.67), zest, and work engagement (r = 0.67) as well as emotional exhaustion (r = −0.47), perseverance/leadership and depersonalization (r = −0.27), bravery, and reduced personal accomplishment (r = −0.39). Tertiary splits revealed that some correlations were not consistent across the entire scale continuum, for example, creativity was only significantly correlated with comparatively high levels of thriving (r = 0.28) or forgiveness with comparatively high levels of depersonalization (r = −0.34). Humility, social intelligence, and teamwork showed predominantly low correlations with all outcome variables (r = −0.17 − 0.34), although humility was stated by all interviewed medical specialist educators to be the most relevant for the well-being at work, and the latter two by three resident physicians, respectively. Different perspectives resulting from quantitative and qualitative data in terms of beneficial character strengths for work-related well-being may be driven by different work experiences, professional understandings, generational beliefs, or social expectations. Some significant correlations between character strengths and well-being outcomes varied depending on low, medium, or high outcomes. This raises questions about suitable work-related well-being interventions, as simple single intervention approaches (one intervention fits all) may not work for the respective outcome levels. These new findings warrant further research on how to foster the well-being of resident physicians at work.

Association Between Positive Mental Character and Humanistic Care Ability in Chinese Nursing Students in Changsha, China

“…Transcendence refers to appreciation of beauty and excellence, humor, faith and hope. The greater a person's courage, humanity, justice, and transcendence, the stronger their humanistic care ability (Kachel et al, 2021 ). It is possible that nursing students with more positive mental characters could provide services that better meet patients' needs, through effective patient communication, the observation of patient behavior and empathy with patients' emotions.…”

“…Studies have shown that the positive orientation of thoughts, emotions and behaviors of individuals is influenced by positive mental characters, which is reflected in the fact that individuals can maintain a positive and optimistic attitude when they are confused or in adversity, and are good at improving their self-quality when they are in good times, which has a positive effect on the caring behaviors of nursing students during their clinical practice (Park and Peterson, 2006 ; Celano et al, 2013 ; Kachel et al, 2021 ). Positive mental character was first mentioned by Meng et al ( 2016 ) based on the researches from Peterson and Seligman ( 2004 ).…”

Building on Strengths: An Affirmational and Systems-Level Approach to Revisiting Character in Medicine

“…46 Character Strengths, Professionalism, and Health Care Research on character strengths in health care has shown that both physicians and trainees identify certain character strengths as important to well-being in medicine: honesty, kindness, fairness, judgment, and love. 47 Furthermore, the character strengths of zest and hope have been linked empirically to health care professionals' work-related well-being and engagement. 20,47 This literature, however, reveals a concerning gap in character strengths deemed relevant to health care work relative to those associated with overall well-being.…”

Exploration and practice of humanistic education for medical students based on volunteerism

“…A study demonstrated the relationships between volunteer work and six aspects of personal well-being: happiness, life satisfaction, self-esteem, sense of control over life, physical health, and depression. The results showed that volunteer work improves all six aspects of well-being [ 62 ] and if the relevant departments can further measure the individual personality of different volunteers when arranging volunteer work, so that they can each share their strengths, it will not only improve the work results to a certain extent, but also further enhance the happiness level of each person in volunteer service [ 63 , 64 ]. Therefore, a successful volunteer service brings a certain value to others and society and immeasurable value to one’s life in the process [ 65 ].…”