Investigating the Role of Personality Characteristics and Professional Identification in Nurses Attitudes Toward Interprofessional Learning

Introduction: Consistent with the nature of health care, inter-professional collaboration is established as one of the effective principles of medical education and interventions; The effectiveness of this cooperation is related to various individual, structural and socio-cultural factors; This study is aimed at investigating the roles of personality traits and professional identity on the attitudes of Ardabil University of Medical Sciences’ nurses towards interprofessional learning.  Methods: This study is an applied type in terms of method and correlational-descriptive in terms of design. The statistical population of the study consisted of all the employed nurses in Ardabil University of Medical Sciences’ hospitals that 310 nurses determined by the multi-stage random sampling method. Data collection was done using four questionnaires. SPSS software was employed to analyze the data. Moreover, the correlations between the variables were measured using the Pearson correlation test, variance analysis, and regression analysis.  Results: The results showed that extraversion, openness, agreeableness and consciousness have a direct effect on their nurse’s attitude towards interprofessional learning (p <0.01). Besides, the nurses who have a successful professional identity own a higher amount of preparation for interprofessional education (p <0.01). The mediating role of professional identity between two variables of personality traits and interprofessional learning was estimated to be rather low.  Conclusions: The existence of a significant difference between personality traits of the nurses and their attitudes towards interprofessional learning can lead to positive attitudes towards cooperation among nurses with a suitable personality style. Also, the adaptation of personality dimensions in a medical team can bring out the possibility of enhancement in interpersonal interactions. With the provision of conditions in which a person can obtain successful identity, preparation for interprofessional learning among nurses is achievable.