The Relationship Between Spiritual Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

Abstract

Background: Diabetes mellitus is a chronic, destructive metabolic disease. One of the factors that can affect the mental and physical health of diabetic patients is spiritual intelligence and emotional intelligence. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between spiritual intelligence and emotional intelligence in patients with type 2 diabetes. Methods: This descriptive - correlational study was performed on 100 patients with type 2 diabetes who referred to the Kermanshah Diabetes Research Center and selected by the convenient sampling method. In order to determine the spiritual intelligence in diabetic patients, the King’s Spiritual Intelligence was used while Petrides & Furnham Inventory of Emotional Intelligence was applied to evaluate emotional intelligence. In order to analyze the data, SPSS version 22 was used. Results: The mean age of the patients was 39.97 ± 11.8. The mean score of spiritual intelligence was 52.10 ± 18.05 and the mean score of emotional intelligence was 127.62 ± 23.88. The results showed that there was a positive significant difference between spiritual intelligence and emotional intelligence and its subscales in patients with type 2 diabetes (P > 0.001). Conclusions: It can be concluded that spiritual intelligence and emotional intelligence can complement each other in order to increase diabetes self - management and adaptive mechanisms in patients. The more the patient is against wrong behaviors of others and trusts in God for his/her tasks, the better the individual can manage his/her daily activities in life and provide a context for emotional intelligence development.