The Emotional Intelligence of Clinical Staff Nurses

Abstract

Dozens of studies throughout a wide range of professions and settings have demonstrated significant correlations between emotional intelligence and high levels of perfonnance, productivity, team effectiveness, lower levels of job stress and other positive organizational outcomes. There is little research on the emotional intelligence of nurses and none in the United States on the measured EI of clinical staff nurses.This descriptive, explorative and quantitative study was undertaken to analyze the emotional intelligence of clinical staff nurses. Clinical staff nurses from three urban hospitals on Oahu, Hawaii, participated in the study. An emotional intelligence instrument was used that was based on the ability model of emotional intelligence (MSCEIT v2). Findings from this study support the conclusion of previous studies in non­ nursing literature that perfonnance level correlates positively with emotional intelligence scores. Nurses in this study demonstrated greater ability in emotional intelligence skills related to strategizing with emotions than the skills related to experiencing them. The highest branch scores were related to the skills of managing emotions and the lowest the skills of perceiving emotions. The findings of this study suggest that inclusion of emotional intelligence skills in nursing curricula, both in the academic and clinical practice settings, may be important to retaining and supporting a resilient and thriving nursing workforce in the future.