The Relationship between depression and emotional intelligence among a sample of Jordanian children

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between depression and emotional intelligence among children. A Jordanian translation of the children's depression Inventory (CDI) which is a self-report measure of depression was used in this study. The Inventory contained 27 items that assess affective, cognitive and behavioral symptoms of depression. The basic sample on which the (CDI) were applied on consisted of 619 (365 female and 254 male) at sixth grade from both public and private schools in Amman city. According to the CDI and by using a cut-off score of 19 or more, 54 children (33 female and 21 male) with a prevalence rate of 9% were considered as severally depressed.Accordingly, severally depressed students were administered the BarOn Emotional Quotient inventory: Youth Version (BarOn EQ-i: YV), a self-report instrument designed to measure emotional intelligence for young people aged 7 to 18 years. The BarOn EQ-i consists of 60 items distributed across Intrapersonal Scale, Interpersonal Scale, Adaptability Scale, Stress Management Scale, Total EQ. The study revealed two major findings. First, there were statistically significant differences between males and females in the Stress Management Scale and Total EQ Scale, as a result, depressed females showed lower level of emotional intelligence than males. Second, there were no significant differences between males and females in either intrapersonal, interpersonal and Adaptability Scales.