The Relationship between Five Factors Personality Traits of Nursing Students and Their Attitudes towards Mental Patients

Abstract

This study aimed to reveal the relationship between the personal traits of nursing students and their attitudes toward mental Patients. The randomized sample consisted of (144) selected students in the Faculty of Nursing at Al al-Bayt University, their ages ranged from (18 to 22) years. The result concluded that nursing students’ attitudes toward mental patients were negative. It also indicated that the trait openness to experience has a significant negative correlation on all domains of attitudes toward mental patients scale, the correlation of the conscientiousness trait with the domains of attitudes toward mental disorders is not significant, and the extraversion trait has significant positive correlation with stereotyping, pessimism and stigma domains. The agreeableness trait has a significant negative correlation with all domains of attitudes toward mental disorders scale. The neuroticism trait has a significant negative correlation with the domain of the tendency towards pity in students' attitudes toward mental patients, while the rest of the domains of students' attitudes toward mental patients were not significant. The results also indicated that there are significant differences in all domains of the attitudes toward mental patients scale due to the gender variable in favor of males; That is, males had more negative attitudes toward mental patients than females. It is also clear that there are no significant differences for the variables of academic level and cumulative average in the dimensions of attitudes toward mental disorders. The study recommends creating educational programs to educate students about the importance of carrying positive attitudes toward mental patients, which contributes to reducing the problems of mental patients.