Job Satisfaction Among Frontline Caregivers: The Mediating Role of Psychological Safety and Personality Traits

Background: Job satisfaction remains a persistent concern in care facilities, where frontline caregivers work in highly relational and emotionally demanding environments. Although both personality traits and psychological safety have been associated with job satisfaction, their relative contributions and potential interrelationships in routine care settings remain unclear. Methods: Drawing on organizational and psychological theory, we hypothesized a priori that personality traits, psychological safety, and job satisfaction would be statistically associated, with psychological safety mediating the relationship between personality traits and job satisfaction. A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted in care facilities, and the final analytical sample consisted of 183 frontline caregivers selected according to predefined inclusion criteria. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the hypothesized mediation model. Group comparison analyses examined differences in psychological safety across levels of job satisfaction. In addition, machine learning models were applied to explore predictive patterns among personality traits, psychological safety, and job satisfaction. Results: In the SEM analyses, psychological safety was significantly associated with job satisfaction (β = 0.207, p < 0.05), although the effect size was modest. Personality traits did not show direct associations with job satisfaction. Instead, agreeableness (β = 0.232, p < 0.01) and neuroticism (β = -0.235, p < 0.01) were associated with psychological safety, which, in turn, was related to job satisfaction. Bootstrap resampling supported the presence of significant indirect associations. At the item level, communication-related aspects of psychological safety were particularly salient. Caregivers with different levels of job satisfaction differed most clearly in communication-related items. Consistent with this pattern, exploratory machine learning analyses (XGBoost) also identified psychological safety as a more important predictor of job satisfaction than personality traits. Conclusions: These findings suggest that, among frontline caregivers working in healthcare facilities, psychological safety was more closely associated with job satisfaction than individual personality traits. In particular, the ability to speak openly and raise concerns was more strongly associated with higher levels of job satisfaction within this care context. Personality traits were associated with job satisfaction primarily through their relationship with psychological safety rather than through direct associations.