Personality Traits, Personal Values, and Life Satisfaction among Polish Nurses.

Nurses' life satisfaction (LS) predicts their health and the level of care they provide to patients, thus policies for promoting quality of nurses' work require actions to increase their LS. The aim of this study was to examine relations between LS and two levels of personality (traits and values) among Polish nurses, including joint effects of traits and values in a model integrating all variables to check whether meta-values can mediate trait-LS relationships. Nurses (N = 155) aged 23-64 completed the NEO-FFI, Satisfaction with Life Scale, and PVQ40. LS correlated with all traits, with openness higher than usual (0.34), and positively associated with meta-values: openness to change (0.23), self-transcendence (0.30), and ('unhealthy') conservation (0.19). Trait-value consistency was insufficient to explain some trait-value associations. In the SEM analysis, 23.3% of LS variance was explained. LS was related directly to neuroticism negatively and positively not only to extraversion, but also to openness, and self-transcendence meta-value (that increased value-environment congruence), and indirectly positively (through self-transcendence) to openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and even neuroticism. These results indicate that promoting nurses' health and quality of work by enhancing their LS requires supporting and increasing their identification with self-transcendence values and encourage research on factors that can increase it.

The mediational effect of coherence on the relationship between mental load and job burnout among oncology nurses.

AIMS: The purpose of this study was to determine the mediational effect of coherence on the relationship between mental load and job burnout among oncology nurses. BACKGROUND: Working stress and strain cause high mental load and can lead to job burnout among oncology nurses. Sense of coherence protects against the negative consequences of occupational mental load and may prevent professional burnout. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study was carried out with 165 oncology nurses from chemotherapy departments. The data were collected from April to September 2013 using the Antonovsky Sense of Coherence Scale, Meister questionnaire, and Maslach Burnout Inventory. RESULTS: Manageability mediated the relations between Mental Load and both Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization. Meaningfulness exerted significant mediational effect on the relationship between Mental Load and Depersonalization. Manageability and Meaningfulness attenuate the unfavourable effect of Monotony and Unspecific load on motional Exhaustion and Depersonalization. CONCLUSIONS: Sense of coherence, especially Manageability and Meaningfulness, seems to be an important resource for oncology nurses, buffering the negative impact of mental load on well-being of nurses. Strengthening the sense of coherence can be helpful in preventing or dealing with professional burnout.