ABSTRACT
Background: Emotional intelligence (EQ) in health institutions is a field presenting a particular interest, because this particular environment of workplace presents some traits that are not met elsewhere. Soul- destroying working conditions make it imperative to use and develop emotional skills for two main reasons: firstly in order to have a good work output and incidentally to protect the working staff from soul- destroying environment.
Objectives: The aim of this study was to measure the emotional intelligence of nurses working in Public Hospitals. Methods: A specialised questionnaire was developed and subsequently given to 251 nurses working in Public Greek Hospitals.The questionnaire included 69 questions describing the following 7 dimensions of emotional intelligence: self-consciousness, self-adjustment, motivations of behaviour, social skills, awareness of another person’s emotional state, humour, and critical thought.The answers were given based on the 4 point Likert scale (not at all – a little – quite enough – a lot).To process our data statistically, we used the SPSS 14.0 (Statistical Package for Social Sciences).
Results: Statistical analysis revealed that 50.5% of our nurses sample working in Public Hospitals allocate a satisfactory level of Emotional Intelligence (EQ), 29.2% presented high EQ and 20.4% allocate below the mediocre EQ. Conclusions: Stressing environment of Health institutions imposes the development of emotional skills in order to achieve exceptional clinical performance and to protect nurses from this particular environment.
Keywords: Care, Emotional Intelligence, emotions, nursing