Does personality influence job acquisition and tenure in people with severe mental illness enrolled in supported employment programs?

Abstract

Background: When employment difficulties in people with severe mental illness (SMI) occur, it could be partly linked to issues not specific to SMI, such as personality traits or problems. Despite the fact that personality has a marked influence on almost every aspect of work behavior, it has scarcely been investigated in the context of employment for people with SMI.

Aims: We aimed to evaluate if personality was more predictive than clinical variables of different competitive work outcomes, namely acquisition of competitive employment, delay to acquisition and job tenure.

Method: A sample of 82 people with a SMI enrolled in supported employment programs (SEP) was recruited and asked to complete various questionnaires and interviews. Statistical analyses included logistic regressions and survival analyses (Cox regressions).

Results: Prior employment, personality problems and negative symptoms are significantly related to acquisition of a competitive employment and to delay to acquisition whereas the conscientiousness personality trait was predictive of job tenure.

Conclusion: Our results point out the relevance of personality traits and problems as predictors of work outcomes in people with SMI registered in SEP. Future studies should recruit larger samples and also investigate these links with other factors related to work outcomes.

Keywords:

• Work outcomes
• severe mental illness
• supported employment
• personality
• survival analyses

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by grants and doctoral awards from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail (IRSST). The first author would like to address a special thank you to all evaluators at our research laboratory who participated in the data collection.