Personality and clinical skills: any correlation?
BACKGROUND
To determine correlations between personality factors and clinical skills of second-year medical school students.


METHODS
Participants were 206 medical students who had completed the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) and the Clinical Skills Assessment II (CSA II).


RESULTS
of the 16PF and CSA II were analyzed using Pearson R. Results Overall CSA II score correlated positively with Warmth and negatively with Abstractedness and Privateness. Communication skills correlated positively with Warmth, Emotional Stability, and Perfectionism and negatively with Privateness. Data gathering correlated positively with Warmth and negatively with Abstractedness. Physical exam and Case presentation subtests had no correlates.


CONCLUSIONS
The findings of this study suggest that a relationship may exist between personality and clinical skills.
Manuel
R Stephen
RS
University of Cincinnati School of Medicine, 231 Albert Sabin Way, Cincinnati, OH 45267-0552, USA. manuelrs@ucmail.uc.edu
Borges
Nicole J
NJ
Gerzina
Holly A
HA
D002983:Clinical Competence; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D015146:Midwestern United States; D010551:Personality; D010555:Personality Inventory; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*