Personality and Self-Efficacy for Illness Management in Cancer

Purpose: Self-efficacy for illness management is increasingly recognized as important for outcomes in cancer. We examined whether the Big Five personality dimensions were associated with self-efficacy for illness management and hypothesized that patients who were less neurotic and more conscientious would have better self-efficacy. Methods: A total of 372 adults with cancer completed a cross-sectional survey that included the Mini-International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) and three subscales of the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Self-Efficacy for Chronic Conditions: managing emotions, managing symptoms, and managing treatment and medication. Linear regressions were used to test the hypotheses, while controlling for covariates. Results: The personality and PROMIS self-efficacy measures demonstrated good evidence of reliability (Cronbach’s alphas = .68 to .83). As hypothesized, lower neuroticism or higher conscientiousness were associated with higher levels of illness self-efficacy overall and on each of the three subscales (all p s < .001). Openness was associated with better overall illness self-efficacy ( p = .024) and self-management of symptoms ( p = .023). Extraversion was associated with better self-management of emotions ( p = .022) and overall illness self-efficacy ( p = .034). Conclusions: Personality was associated with illness self-efficacy for patients with cancer. As a part of multidisciplinary care teams, psychosocial experts can use these findings to help patients better manage their illness.