The Relationship between Type D Personality and Occupational Stress with Symptoms of Psychosomatic Disorders in Nurses

Job stress is considered a major factor in disease development and job absence among nurses. In order to have high quality care, it is necessary to use strategies for the physical and mental health of nurses by identifying factors affecting stress. Given the unclear relationship between personality traits and occupational stress and psychosomatic symptoms among nurses, the study aimed to determine the relationship between personality type D and occupational stress with symptoms of mental disorders in nurses.

This descriptive, correlational research was performed on 320 randomly selected nurses working in Imam Khomeini Hospital in Tehran, Iran (2016). Data were collected using the type-D scale, nursing stress scale revised, and SDQ-20 questionnaire. In addition, data analysis was performed using Pearson’s correlation coefficient and multiple regression.

In this study, personality type D had a significant effect on the changes in the psychosomatic symptoms (P=0.001). Moreover, the level of job stress variable was able to predict a significant ratio of the variance of psychosomatic symptoms after controlling the variable of personality type D (P=0.001).

According to the results of the study, nurses with personality type D have high psychosomatic symptoms. Considering the important role and responsibilities of nurses in maintaining the health and well-being of patients, it is essential to reduce the stressors and improve the quality of life of nurses.