Impact of imparting emotional intelligence skills training program to enhance emotional intelligence and work stress among staff nurses of tertiary care hospital of North Gujarat

Context: Nurses play a pivotal role in patient care and at the same time, face stressful situations due to workload, so the need of the hour is to create awareness about emotional intelligence (EI) among nurses to tide over such situations. Aims: This study aimed (1) to measure baseline levels of EI in the control and intervention group of staff nurses, (2) to find the association between the sociodemographic factors and EI, (3) to give EI training skills program to the experimental group, (4) to measure any enhancement in EI Skills after the intervention, and (4) to assess any improvement in work performance (WP) after EI intervention. Settings and Design: An experimental study was conducted among nurses working in GMERS Hospital, Patan, who were working in critical care units and general hospital wards. Materials and Methods: One-third of nurses from each of the two blocks were taken (convenience sampling) from the two blocks (critical care units and general units), i.e., 24 and 42 nurses, respectively, and allocated into experimental and control groups, respectively. Questionnaire containing questions related to sociodemographic variables, the Schutte Self-Report EI test, and WP survey questionnaire by the University of Michigan Health System were used. Statistical Analysis Used: Quantitative data were summarized using means and standard deviation. The data were assessed for normality and suitable tests such as t-test and paired t-test were used. Results: A significant enhancement in mean EI score i.e 145.16±5.938 after intervention from base mean EI score of 132.42±4.21 was noticed. Furthermore, the job performance showed a statistically significant improvement after EI Intervention. None of the sociodemographic variables showed a statistically significant association with the EI scores of intervention group. Conclusions: The Study highlights the importance of EI Training among Staff nurses as an essential part of their training program, to cope up with stress level in their day to day life and this training also has a positive impact on their Job performance thereby enhancing the quality of patient care.