The association between nurses’ personality types and attitudes towards older patients and their clinical decision-making styles

This study was conducted to determine the association between nurses’ personality types and their attitudes towards older patients and clinical decision-making styles. This is a descriptive cross-sectional study. The calculated sample size was 200 people, with a response rate of 98%; the final sample size was 196. The participants were randomly selected from the list of nurses working in educational-therapeutic hospitals in Khorramabad city who met the eligibility criteria. The questionnaire used in the present study comprised four sections: (a) Demographic characteristics collection form, (b) The short version of the NEO Five-Factor Inventory-Revised (NEO-FFI-R), (c) Kogan attitude questionnaire towards older people, and (d) The nursing clinical decision-making questionnaire. The personality traits of openness to experience and agreeableness had the highest and lowest percentages, respectively. The mean and standard deviation of the overall clinical decision-making score of nurses was 61.81 ± 13.52, which generally indicates analytical decision-making of nurses. This study showed a relationship between all personality traits and attitudes towards older adult patients among nurses. So there is a significant relationship between the attitude of appreciation and the high level. This study showed a significant relationship between openness to experience and analytical decision-making. The more positive the nurses’ attitude towards older adult patients, the greater the tendency towards intuitive interpretive decision-making. This study found that nurses’ attitudes toward older patients and clinical decision-making can be associated with their personality traits. Given the importance of clinical decision-making in caring for older adult patients, employers should consider nurses’ personality traits and their attitudes toward older adults. Nurses with appropriate personality traits, such as conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness to experiences, and extroversion, respectively, should be recruited. Neuroticism is an unfavorable trait among nurses, which decreases the quality of care.