Psychological dysfunction in psychiatric and general nurse trainees.

The often held belief that psychiatric professionals are more psychologically disturbed than similar non-psychiatric professionals was not supported by the present study. Indeed in a comparison of two groups of nurse trainees, general nurse trainees showed a small but significantly greater degree of psychopathology than psychiatric nurses. When confounding variables and social desirability response set was taken into account, general nurse trainees had significantly higher scores on neuroticism, trait and state anxiety and depression. The groups did not differ on psychoticism (antisocial traits), extraversion, hypochondriasis or, work or social impairment. In terms of use of illicit drugs, the psychiatric nurses used only more cannabis than general nurses which was accounted for by females alone.