Nurses' caring behavior based on personality in Indonesia: A pilot study for better-humanized healthcare services

Caring behavior is influenced by psychological factors, including the characteristics of personality. However, psychological test results for nurses' recruitment are not optimal for nursing resource development. This study aimed to determine the relationship between personality characteristics and nurses' caring behavior in hospitals.

A cross-sectional design was adopted involving 153 nurses of a private hospital in Jakarta selected by convenience sampling technique. Data were also collected from the Caring Behavior Inventory (CBI-24) and Myers-Briggs Type Indicators (MBTI) test results. Statistical analysis using the one-way ANOVA to identify differences in nurses' CBI scores based on MBTI personality.

The results study indicate that most of the nurses were traditionalists (75.16%), and the average CBI score (85.43±5.94) was equivalent to 85%, which means that nurses' caring behavior was good. There were differences in the scores of caring behavior among personality characteristics; however, these differences were not statistically significant (p = .320; α= .05). Furthermore, the post-hoc test analysis showed that the conceptualizer nurses had the highest caring behavior score, while the experiencers had the lowest.

Personality characteristics, as measured by MBTI,  are not related to the caring behavior of nurses. One possible reason for this result is that the MBTI does not specifically measure caring personality. Psychological tests on personality characteristics are used in career development and nurse placement. This study recommends that human resource management in healthcare use more specific tools to measure caring personality and psychological tests in healthcare staff recruitment for better-humanized healthcare services.