Examination of Occupational Stress, Personality Traits, and Demographics Among U.S. Audiologists.

Purpose: Recent research suggests that personality traits may be associated with occupational stress for audiologists, but this relationship had not been examined prior to this study. Method: The Audiologist Occupational Stress Questionnaire (AOSQ; Severn et al., 2012), informal stress ratings, the Core Self-Evaluations Scale (CSES; Judge et al., 2003), and demographic questions were administered via Qualtrics to 307 U.S. audiologists. Results: There was a significant inverse relationship between AOSQ and CSES scores indicating that positive personality traits were associated with lower occupational stress scores. Occupational stress was related to certain demographics, including years of experience, level of business involvement, and percent of time spent in direct patient care. Informal ratings indicated participants who reported high stress level for an "average day" reported high stress levels also for their "worst day." AOSQ scores were significantly correlated with informal ratings, suggesting informal questions could provide a quick indicator of stress level to monitor audiologists' stress. Stress themes that emerged from qualitative analyses were Workload, Lack of Support, Patients, Administration, Financials, and Changes to Audiology. Conclusions: Personality traits were related to occupational stress, suggesting an assessment of personality traits, plus certain work-related demographics, may provide an early indicator of audiologists at risk for high levels of occupational stress. Stress themes and current strategies used by audiologists that were identified in this study provide an indication of areas in which individuals, the profession, and employers could focus efforts toward improving audiologists' well-being.