association between personality traits, work-family conflict, job stress and nurses' cognitive failures: a cross-sectional study

Background: cognitive failures are one of the most important causes of patients’ unsafe events. hence, it is necessary to consider individual and cognitive, as well as extra-organizational characteristics. the present study was conducted to investigate the association between personality traits, job stress, work-family conflict and nurses’ cognitive failures.materials and methods: this descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 250 nurses working in three public hospitals in sari city, iran, in 2021. the subjects were selected using stratified random sampling. neo five-factor inventory, health and safety executive (hse) tool, work-family conflict scale (wfcs), and occupational cognitive failure questionnaire (ocfq) were used to measure personality traits, job stress, work-family conflict, and cognitive failures, respectively. the data were analyzed in spss (ve. 23) and regression analysis with the sequential method was applied.  results: among 13 studied predictor variables, only extraversion, agreeableness, demand, and role were predictors of cognitive failures. these variables explain 44.1% of the variance of cognitive failure. the b values of neuroticism and conscientiousness to predict cognitive failures were 0.34 and -0.29, respectively (p < 0.001). although role (b = 0.15, p < 0.001) and demand (b = 0.14, p < 0.001) significantly predict cognitive failure; however, their effect is limited. the results of the study did not provide confirmation for the moderating effect of neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness on the association between work-family conflict, job stress, and cognitive failures. conclusions: along with environmental and organizational stress factors, evaluating nurses’ personality traits is necessary to control cognitive failures.