Personality, addiction and anesthesia.

While substance abuse problems in the health care profession are not new, little documentation exists as to their prevalence among nurse anesthetists. There already exists considerable evidence that physician specialists in anesthesia are overrepresented in the population of physicians seeking treatment for drug and alcohol use. The purpose of this research was to explore factors related to personality and addictive tendencies that might predispose nurse anesthetists to substance abuse as well. Of the 150 graduate nursing students in the study, those specializing in anesthesia (n = 81) formed the study group while those pursuing general nursing graduate degrees (n = 69) comprised the control group. Differences in the personality facets of impulsiveness, assertiveness and excitement seeking were measured using the NEO Personality Inventory. The addictive tendencies of the subjects were measured using the MacAndrew Scale taken from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. In comparative analyses of the two groups, the anesthesia subjects exhibited a higher mean score for excitement seeking and a greater number of positive MacAndrew (addictive tendency) scores (22.2% versus 5.9%). The findings also showed that subjects with positive MacAndrew scores generally had higher excitement seeking scores. It may be possible that this higher level of excitement seeking predisposes future nurse anesthetists to the development of addictive disorders.