Do personality traits of nurses have an effect on conflict management strategies?

AIM: This research was conducted in a descriptive, correlational and cross-sectional design to determine whether personality traits of nurses have an effect on conflict management strategies.

BACKGROUND: It is known that integration, avoidance and compromise conflict management strategies are the most frequent strategies used among nurses and obligation and domination are the least frequent. However, the reasons behind their strategy choice are not known. It is predicted that one of the reasons is the personality characteristics of the nurses.

METHOD: The study was conducted with the participation of 237 nurses working in three different hospitals. Research data were collected by using the 'Personal Information Form', 'Rahim Organisational Conflict Inventory-II' and 'Five Factor Personality Inventory' between December 2013 and February 2014. Ethical approval and the organisations' approvals were obtained before data collection. The collected data were analysed using frequency and percentage distributions, descriptive statistics, Pearson product-moment correlation analysis, t-test, Cronbach's alpha coefficient and simple linear regression analysis tests.

RESULTS: The majority of nurses had conflict especially with patients' relatives several times a month. It was found that the personality traits of nurses were mostly 'conscientiousness' and 'openness' and when they had a conflict, they tended to use 'integration' strategy. It was also found that the personality traits of nurses had an effect on some of the conflict management strategies adopted by them.

CONCLUSIONS: It was found that the personality traits of nurses had an effect on some conflict management strategies adopted by them.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Nurse managers should support nurses who adopt appropriate conflict management strategies and there should be conflict management programmes that can teach appropriate skills to other nurses.