2025 Articles

Association of residents’ personality traits with clinical performance in an orthopedic physical therapy residency program

Geist, Kathleen T.; Carter, Vincent; McDaniel, Leda; Walston, Zachary

Purpose: Despite the lack of validity and reliability, residency programs use various assessments to admit residents and anticipate their future performance that include admission interviews and letters of recommendation. The purpose of this study is to examine whether there is a valid, reliable, or predictive association between physical therapy residents’ personality traits and their clinical performance in the domains of live patient examination, clinical productivity, and patient satisfaction during residency training.
Methods: This study was an observational cohort study. Each resident completed a standardized 16 Personal Factors Questionnaire (16 PF) on their respective hire date prior to matriculation in the physical therapy residency program.
Results: Results of the Spearman’s rho correlation indicated there was a strong positive association between those residents who were classified as more even-keeled (r = 0.473; p = 0.02) and meeting clinical productivity goals at 3 months. Better performance on the live patient examination was associated with residents who were identified as being people-oriented (r = 0.531; p = 0.02), gregarious (r = 0.464; p = 0.04), and fearless (r = 0.521; p = 0.02), while worse performance was associated with residents who were self-disclosing (r = -0.673; p = 0.00) and self-confident (r = -0.520; p = 0.02).
Conclusions: Identification of residents’ personality traits may be helpful in determining whether residents are likely to meet expectations in the domains of clinical productivity and performance on a live patient examination during the first 3 months of a post-professional physical therapy residency program.