The Association Between Personality Traits and Specialty Preference Among Medical Students in Jordan

Figures & data

Table 1 Participants’ Characteristics, Personality Profiles and Preferred Specialty Choices

		n (%)	Mean	SD
Age (years)			23.3	1.2
Gender	Male	398 (39.3%)
	Female	614 (60.7%)
University	Jordan University of Science and Technology	300 (29.6%)
	Mutah University	141 (13.9%)
	Hashemite University	151 (14.9%)
	The University of Jordan	308 (30.4%)
	Yarmouk University	112 (11.1%)
Academic Year	Fifth Year	413 (40.8%)
	Sixth Year	360 (35.6%)
	Internship	239 (23.6%)
Personality Traits	Extraversion		66.0	12.9
	Agreeableness		75.6	10.9
	Conscientiousness		75.1	13.2
	Negative Emotionality		60.2	14.6
	Open-Mindedness		72.4	10.3
Medical Parts	Basic Medicine	50 (4.9%)
	Clinical Medicine	962 (95.1%)
Medical Fields	Non-practitioner	122 (12.1%)
	Practitioner	890 (87.9%)
Specialty (General)	Medicine oriented	510 (50.4%)
	Surgery oriented	502 (49.6%)
Specialty	Anesthesiology	9 (0.9%)
	Emergency Medicine	20 (2.0%)
	Medicine (and subspecialties)	354 (35.0%)
	Obstetrics & Gynecology	93 (9.2%)
	Pediatric	119 (11.8%)
	Surgery (and subspecialties)	400 (39.5%)
Number of Specialties of Interest	One specialty	166 (16.4%)
	Two specialties	471 (46.5%)
	Three specialties or more	375 (37.1%)

Table 2 Difference in Personality Traits Among Medical Students in Relation to Their Choice of Specialty

		Mean (SD)	MD	P value**	95% CI of the Difference		Effect Size*
					Lower	Upper
Extraversion	Medicine	64.1	−3.7	<0.001^‡	−5.3	−2.2	0.29
	Surgery	67.9
	Basic	58.4	−7.9	<0.001^‡	−11.6	−4.3	0.60
	Clinical	66.3
	Non-practitioner	57.8	−9.2	<0.001^‡	−11.6	−6.8	0.74
	Practitioner	67.1
Agreeableness	Medicine	76.2	1.2	0.079	−0.1	2.5	0.11
	Surgery	75.0
	Basic	73.8	−1.9	0.216	−5.0	1.1	0.16
	Clinical	75.7
	Non-practitioner	75.0	−.7	0.490	−2.7	1.3	0.06
	Practitioner	75.7
Conscientiousness	Medicine	74.1	−2.0	0.015^‡	−3.6	−.4	0.15
	Surgery	76.2
	Basic	70.2	−5.2	0.006^‡	−9.0	−1.4	0.38
	Clinical	75.4
	Non-practitioner	71.7	−3.9	0.002^‡	−6.4	−1.4	0.28
	Practitioner	75.6
Negative Emotionality	Medicine	61.8	3.2	<0.001^‡	1.4	5.0	0.22
	Surgery	58.5
	Basic	62.5	2.4	0.253	−1.7	6.5	0.17
	Clinical	60.1
	Non-practitioner	64.8	5.3	<0.001^‡	2.5	8.0	0.37
	Practitioner	59.5
Open-Mindedness	Medicine	72.1	−.6	0.321	−1.9	0.6	0.06
	Surgery	72.8
	Basic	70.7	−1.8	0.209	−4.8	1.0	0.17
	Clinical	72.5
	Non-practitioner	71.2	−1.4	0.146	−3.4	0.5	0.13
	Practitioner	72.6

Notes: *Cohen’s d, **Significance (2-tailed), ^‡Significant at 0.05 level.

Abbreviations: MD, mean difference; t, t-value; SD, standard deviation; CI, confidence interval.

Table 3 Personality Score for Each Specialty

	Extraversion Mean (SD)	Agreeableness Mean (SD)	Conscientiousness Mean (SD)	Negative Emotionality Mean (SD)	Open Mindedness Mean (SD)
Anesthesiology	58.1 (16.0)	78.7 (8.5)	77.9 (11.7)	61.2 (15.5)	72.0 (10.1)
Basic Medicine	61.4 (13.3)	70.2 (11.2)	72.8 (12.6)	59.4 (12.0)	69.6 (9.5)
Emergency Medicine	62.9 (11.7)	71.5 (10.8)	67.6 (17.1)	65.5 (17.2)	68.1 (11.1)
Medicine	64.5 (13.1)	75.6 (11.1)	74.4 (13.6)	61.7 (13.9)	72.7 (10.1)
Obstetrics & Gynecology	67.6 (12.9)	78.2 (9.9)	75.6 (13.3)	59.5 (12.4)	70.5 (10.1)
Pediatric	63.3 (13.5)	79.8 (10.4)	74.7 (12.6)	61.8 (14.5)	71.4 (11.0)
Surgery	68.1 (12.0)	74.2 (10.6)	76.2 (12.7)	58.3 (15.4)	73.3 (10.2)

Abbreviation: SD, standard deviation.

Table 4 One-Way ANOVA to Compare Personality Profile Among Different Specialties

	Pair	MD	F	Sig. for ANOVA test	Sig. for Post hoc Analysis	Effect Size*
Extraversion			4.93	<0.001^‡		0.028
	Surgery - Medicine	3.6			0.002
	Surgery - Pediatric	4.8			0.006
Agreeableness			6.42	<0.001^‡		0.036
	Pediatric - Basic medicine	9.5			0.011
	Pediatric - Emergency medicine	8.3			0.022
	Pediatric - Medicine	4.2			0.004
	Pediatric - Surgery	5.6			<0.001
	Obstetrics & Gynecology - Surgery	4.0			0.019
Conscientiousness			1.94	0.070		0.011
Negative Emotionality			2.52	0.020^‡		0.014
	Medicine - Surgery	3.4			0.022
Open-Mindedness			2.12	0.049		0.012

Notes: ^‡Significant at 0.05 level. *Partial Eta Squared. Only statistically significant pairs are shown.

Abbreviations: MD, mean difference; Sig, significance (2-tailed).

Table 5 One-Way ANOVA to Compare Personality Profiles Among Number of Specialties of Interest

	Pair	MD	F	Sig. for ANOVA test	Sig. for Post hoc Analysis	Effect Size*
Extraversion			4.27	0.014^‡		0.008
	Two versus 3 or more specialties	2.5			0.010^‡
Agreeableness			2.08	0.125		0.004
Conscientiousness			2.55	0.078		0.005
Negative Emotionality			0.61	0.543		0.001
Open-Mindedness			1.98	0.138		0.004

Notes: ^‡Significant at 0.05 level. *Partial Eta Squared. Only statistically significant pairs are shown.

Abbreviations: MD, mean difference; Sig, significance (2-tailed).