Personality profile of pediatric nurse practitioners associated with role change

In a study of personality needs conducive to desired role change for nurse practitioners, 125 nursing students in a four-month pediatric nurse practitioner training program at Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, were given the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule before and after the course. Students in the program were found to have needs associated with the assertiveness and flexibility required by the new role. Before and after training they were low in need for order, endurance, abasement, and deference and high in need for autonomy and aggression. During training, the need for order, endurance, and abasement decreased further. Inconsistent with this interpretation was the finding that students were actually lower in dominance and higher in succorance after training. The decrease in dominance may be related to the program's special emphasis on counseling; the high succorance at the end of the program may have resulted from the transitional state associated with leaving the program.