The Relationship Between Nurses’ Emotional Intelligence Skills and Positive Mental Health

INTRODUCTION: Positive mental health and emotional intelligence skills are crucial factors likely to protect nurses’ mental wellbeing.
METHODS: This study was performed to identify the relationship between nurses’ emotional intelligence skills and positive mental health. Designed as an analytical cross-sectional study, the research was conducted from September to December 2019 at a training and research hospital of a university located in the Aegean region of Turkey. The research population was composed of 750 nurses working actively at the aforementioned hospital while the research sample had 331 nurses selected from the population by using the simple random sampling method. The research data were collected with the Personal Information Form, the Emotional Intelligence Assessment Scale, and the Positive Mental Health Scale. Sociodemographic data were analyzed by using number and percentage distributions while the relationship between the two variables, namely emotional intelligence skills and positive mental health, was examined via Spearman’s correlation analysis.
RESULTS: Nurses had a mean age of 39.20 ± 8.32 years, and of all participant nurses, 89.1% were female, 49.8% held a bachelor’s degree, 77% voluntarily selected the nursing profession, and 58.9% were satisfied with the nursing profession. Besides, the means of total scores obtained by nurses from the Emotional Intelligence Assessment Scale and the Positive Mental Health Scale were successively 145.22 ± 24.71 and 72.54 ± 15.17 points. Moreover, a strong negative relationship was identified between nurses’ mean Emotional Intelligence Assessment Scale and Positive Mental Health Scale scores (r = −0.61; P = .000). Also, the mean of nurses’ Emotional Intelligence Assessment Scale scores had moderately negative relationships with means of scores obtained by them from the Personal Satisfaction Sub-Scale (r = −0.53; P = .000), Autonomy Sub-Scale (r = −0.55; P = .000), Interpersonal Relationship Skills Sub-Scale (r = −0.56; P = .000), Problem-Solving and Self-Actualization Sub-Scale (r = −0.44; P = .000), and Self-Control Sub-Scale (r = −0.40; P = .000) of the Positive Mental Health Scale and a weak negative relationship with the mean of scores obtained by them from the Pro-Social Attitude Sub-Scale (r = −0.34; P = .000) of the Positive Mental Health Scale.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: It was found that nurses had medium-level emotional intelligence skills and positive mental health above the medium level. Additionally, it was identified that there was a positive relationship between nurses’ emotional intelligence skills and mental wellbeing.