Mirror mirror on the ward, who’s the most narcissistic of them all? Pathologic personality traits in health care

Bucknall, Vittoria; Burwaiss, Suendoss; MacDonald, Deborah; Charles, Kathy; Clement, Rhys

Abstract

Background: Stereotypes in medicine have become exaggerated for the purpose of workplace amusement. Our objective was to assess the levels of “dark triad” personality traits expressed by individuals working in different health care specialties in comparison with the general population.

Methods: We conducted a prospective, cross-sectional study within multiple departments of a UK secondary care teaching hospital. A total of 248 health care professionals participated, and 159 members of the general population were recruited as a comparison group. We measured 3 personality traits — narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy — through the validated self-reported personality questionnaires Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), MACH-IV and the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (LSRP), respectively.

Results: Health care professionals scored significantly lower on narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy (mean scores 12.0, 53.0 and 44.7, respectively) than the general population (p < 0.001). Nursing professionals exhibited a significantly higher level of secondary psychopathy than medical professionals (p = 0.04, mean LSRP score 20.3). Within the cohort of medical professionals, surgeons expressed significantly higher levels of narcissism (p = 0.03, mean NPI score 15.0).

Interpretation: Health care professionals expressed low levels of dark triad personality traits. The suggestion that health care professionals are avaricious and untrustworthy may be refuted, even for surgeons.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 20, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Dec 7, 2015
• Publication Date: Dec 8, 2015
• Deposit Date: Mar 1, 2016
• Print ISSN: 0008-4409
• Electronic ISSN: 1488-2329
• Publisher: Canadian Medical Association
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 187
• Issue: 18
• Pages: 1359-1363
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.151135
• Keywords: Health care; nursing; personality traits; narcissism
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/9590
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.151135