The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Coping Styles Against Stress Among Nurses

Taraneh Taghavi Larijani, Mohammad Reza Movaghari, Masoumeh Rostami, Negin Zamani, Fataneh Ghadirian

Emotional intelligence is commonly understood as one’s ability to recognize own emotions and the emotions of others, and to use this understanding to successfully navigate important interactions. By means of emotional intelligence, thoughts will be facilitated and it could link excitement and cognitive abilities. This study is intended to investigate the relation between emotional intelligence and coping style against stress among nurses working in the hospitals of Kermanshah city in Iran. The study is cross correlation. The samples included 350 male and female nurses working in hospitals of Kermanshah city in Iran who were selected by quota. For data collection the questionnaires of demographic information, emotional intelligence, and coping styles were utilized. Data were analyzed by using SPSS version 12. The results showed that there was a meaningful statistical difference between the nurses' emotional intelligence and coping styles (P<0.001). the score of emotional intelligence in nurses with problem-focused coping style was more than the ones who uses emotional-focused and avoidance coping style. There was a meaningful statistical difference between emotional intelligence and demographic information such as age, level of education, and taking tranquilizers (P<0.001). However, there was no meaningful statistical difference between emotional intelligence and gender, work experience, location of work, marital status and shift work. The results showed that emotional intelligence could increase the application of problem-focused coping style against stress. Therefore, it is recommended to use emotional intelligence as a training priority in both academic and clinical fields in order to increase the utilizing of problem-focused coping style.