Effect of Emotional Intelligence Training Intervention on Nursing Students’ Emotional Intelligence and Empathy Level

Document Type : Research articles

Authors

1 Psychiatric Nursing and Mental Health, Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University

2 Psychiatric Nursing and Mental Health, Faculty of Nursing, Damanhour University

Abstract

Emotional intelligence (EI) and its significance to nursing have been increasingly emphasized
throughout the last few years. Emotional intelligence is composed of a deposit of interrelated skills
involving a capability to appraise one’s own emotions, and those of others, utilization &regulation of
own emotions, social skills, and optimism. Empathy also has been described as a necessary element of
the nurse- patient relationship and its link to emotional intelligence has been reported. Accordingly,
EI training skills can be incorporated into educational training intervention to promote these skills.
Objective: Investigate the effect of emotional intelligence educational training intervention on levels of
emotional intelligence and empathy among nursing students of Damanhour University. Setting:
Fourth year nursing students, Faculty of Nursing, Damanhour University. Subjects: Twenty nine
students enrolled in Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing course, and a matched group of twenty
nine students enrolled in the Community Health Nursing course. Tools: Three tools were used for data
collection 1) Socio-demographic and academic data tool 2) Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSPE) 3)
Emotional Intelligence Scale. Results: The present study findings showed that empathy& emotional
intelligence improved over a four weeks period after introducing training intervention for the study
subjects. Conclusion: Emotional Intelligence training has can improve students’ empathy, appraisal
of students own emotion and regulation and utilization of emotions. Recommendations: Emotional
Intelligence courses should be held in curriculum of nursing for students and nursing staff to improve
their empathic talents and emotional intelligence.

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