Maternal Personality and Health Communication in the Pediatric Context

Abstract

Maternal personality and social skills were used to predict both maternal and pediatrician communication patterns during pediatric well-child examinations. Audiotape recordings of mother-pediatrician interaction were collected and analyzed from 78 mothers of children less than 2 years of age at 5 private practice pediatric offices; questionnaires were completed at home by the mothers. Canonical and zero-order correlations indicated that specific utterances made by both mothers and pediatricians can be predicted from the mother's personality (particularly with regard to openness to experience, extraversion, and neuroticism) and from the mother's social skills, providing support for a dynamic mutuality model of medical communication. Theoretical and applied implications for doctor training and development of parent education programs are discussed.

The interactive effect of parent personality and medication knowledge on adherence in children awaiting solid organ transplantation.

“…While N is negatively related to adherence in the adult literature (Axelsson et al, 2011), it is possible that high N represents adaptive anxiety that facilitates learning about the child’s medications in this high-stakes situation. Additionally, parents with higher E may feel more comfortable interacting with and seeking information from medical providers, resulting in greater medication knowledge (Eaton & Tinsley, 1999). Surprisingly, parent C was not predictive of medication knowledge.…”

Personality Traits Predict the Onset of Disease

“…While future work needs to establish the mechanisms that link openness with health outcomes, it appears that this effect is not entirely due to the overlap between openness and intelligence (Turiano et al, 2012). Two intriguing mechanisms that warrant further investigation: Openness may promote activity engagement (Jackson et al, in press) or more creative coping strategies to relieve stress (Connor-Smith & Flachsbart, 2007); and individuals high in openness may improve their health through better communication with their physicians (Eaton & Tinsley, 1999).…”

Personality is of central concern to understand health: towards a theoretical model for health psychology

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“…For physicians, C is related exploring the patient's psychosocial circumstances, however, both C and N were linked to involving patients less in their treatment (Chapman, Duberstein, Epstein, Fiscella, & Kravitz, 2008). Patient's personality (O, E, C, and N) predicts the content of their communication with their physician, the content of the physician's communication (O and N), and the physician's overall rating of the patient's communication success (O; Eaton & Tinsley, 1999). Personality effects on health care volunteering have also been observed.…”