Work Personality, Core Self-evaluation and Perceived Career Barriers in Young Adult Central Nervous System Cancer Survivors

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between work personality, core self-evaluation (CSE), and perceived internal and external barriers to employment in a group of young adult CNS survivors. Methods: The participants consisted of 110 young adult survivors of pediatric central nervous system (CNS) tumors aged between 18 and 30 years old (M = 23.05, SD = 3.36). Mediation analysis with structural equational modeling (SEM) technique was used to correlate a number of different measures (Work Personality [WP], Perceived Employment Barriers [PEB], and Core-Self Evaluation [CSE]). Results: Results revealed an exceptionally well-fitting model to our data with work personality predicting CSE positively: β = 0.34, SE = 0.07, 95% CI (0.18, 0.47) while CSE inversely predicts Perceived Barriers to Employment, β = − 0.60, SE = 0.06, 95% CI (− 0.70, − 0.49). There is a direct pathway from WP to PEB once CSE was accounted for β = − 0.20, SE = 0.07, 95% CI (− 0.33, − 0.06). The presence of both significant direct and indirect effects of WP on PEB implied that there was a partial mediating effect of CSE on the association between WP and PEB. Conclusions: Work personality is a robust construct that can be applied to young adult CNS survivors in effort to gain more insight into the personality and psychological factors that impact career development and employment in this group. The major finding of this study was that work personality and CSE had a significant direct effect on perceived career barriers and that there was a significant indirect effect with CSE acting as a mediator between developmental work personality and perceived career barriers.