Personality traits and psychosocial adjustment of patients with burns

Existing literature demonstrates a relationship between selected personality traits and coping, a relationship explored here in a sample of 61 male Israeli patients with burns. Successful coping was assessed by the 5-item Satisfaction With Life Scale and 2 single-item measures of adjustment to the specific injury. Results suggest that adjustment to the traumatic experience of a burn injury is strongly related to specific personality traits rather than to the physical features of the injury. As predicted, successful coping was found to be positively related to the personality dimensions of extroversion, optimism, self-mastery, and hope, and negatively related to neuroticism and social anxiety. The importance of a patient's ability to elicit social support as a means of coping was also considered. Psychologic intervention is suggested as a consequence of the results obtained.