Aim: This study aimed to determine the personality types and discrimination perception levels of undergraduate nursing students at two private universities in Istanbul, Turkey, and assess whether personality affects perceptions of discrimination.
Method: A descriptive, correlational study was conducted. Data were obtained from 172 nursing students who volunteered to participate in the study. ‘The Nurses’ Perceptions of Discrimination Scale’ was used to determine the degree to which the students perceived various behaviors as discriminatory, and the students’ personality types were assessed using the ‘Bortner Rating Scale–Short Form’. The data were collected online on the Internet. The relationship between students’ perceptions of discrimination and their Bortner type A/B personality traits was analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test.
Results: Most of the students were 21-25 years of age (58.1%), female (63.4%), in the first or second year of the nursing program (67.5%), and not working (80.2%). Our results showed that most of the students had type A personality (66.9%) and high perceptions of discrimination (mean=110.83 on a scale of 30 to 150). There was no significant relationship between personality type and discrimination perception levels (p<0.05).
Conclusion: This study suggests that nursing students are generally sensitive to discriminatory behaviors in the workplace and during patient care, but Bortner personality type is not a significant factor associated with perceptions of discrimination in nursing students. Studies with larger sample sizes are recommended to further contribute to the literature.