THE LINKS OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE OF NURSES WORKING IN DEPARTMENTS OF MENTAL HEALTH AND THERAPEUTIC PROFILE WITH DISTRESS
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.sidebar##
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.main##
Abstract
Distress among healthcare professionals often arises due to high workloads, emotional challenges, and systemic issues within the healthcare system. Over time, unmanaged distress leads not only to mental and physical health disorders but also to decreased work quality and reduced patient satisfaction. Emotional intelligence, which includes recognizing, understanding, and managing one’s and others’ emotions, can significantly impact nurses’ mental health and ability to cope with work pressures. Considering the increasing recognition of the importance of emotional intelligence in healthcare, it is relevant to assess nurses’ emotional intelligence and its relationship with the distress they experience. The study aimed to determine the links of emotional intelligence of nurses working in departments of mental health
and therapeutic profile with distress. A quantitative study was carried out using an anonymous written questionnaire survey in health care institutions of the Klaipėda region providing secondary and tertiary level health care services. The questionnaire was based on standardized questionnaires. One hundred sixty-six nurses took part in the survey. The statistical program package “SPSS 24.0 for Windows” was used for data analysis. The research was performed following the ethical principles. It was established that nurses’ emotional intelligence is associated with the distress they
experience. Nurses rated their emotional intelligence above average, with the highest scores in the use of emotions and the lowest in managing others’ emotions. The most common signs of distress among nurses included fatigue, sleep disturbances, anxiety, pain, weakness, and difficulty concentrating. Nurses working in psychiatric wards exhibited poorer emotional regulation and more frequently experienced sleep disturbances, pain, depression, and weakness compared to those working in therapeutic wards. Different components of emotional intelligence were linked to various aspects of distress: poorer emotional perception was associated with more frequent sleep disturbances, while lower emotional control in therapeutic wards was related to higher incidences of anxiety and depression. Conversely, better emotional control was linked to less frequent anxiety. The study revealed that emotional intelligence has a significant association with the distress experienced by nurses. Strengthening emotional intelligence can significantly reduce the
risk of anxiety and the severity of distress symptoms; therefore, the development of emotional intelligence should be incorporated into nurses’ professional development programs and mental health promotion initiatives within healthcare institutions.
Keywords: Nurses, Emotional Intelligence, Distress, Anxiety, Mental health.
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.details##
Authors contributing to Health policy and management agree to publish their articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public (CC BY-NC-ND) License, allowing third parties to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it, under the condition that the authors are given credit, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this licence are made clear.
