Abstract
In this paper we investigate the effect of occupational stress and emotional intelligence on the performance of health-care employees, working in the operating room department. We expect, our results to prove useful to corresponding human resource departments for improving their practices and methods. We conducted a qualitative study with self-reported questionnaires measuring both, occupational stress and emotional intelligence. The survey was administered to health-care and medical employees in the 401 General Army Hospital of Athens. We then conducted descriptive data analysis and performed regression analysis with job performance as the dependent variable. We found that the level of emotional intelligence and occupational stress are positively correlated and they both affect performance. At the same time, gender does not seem to affect the level of emotional intelligence or the perception of occupational stress. Our regression model explains 17.6% of performance variability using the following predictor variables: the number of operations, the occupational stress and the emotional intelligence levels. However, the number of operations an employee participates in, affects the occupational stress perception. Finally, the level of emotional intelligence and annual sick leave seem to have a strong negative correlation. Hospital managers can use the findings of our research to monitor a number of variables related to emotional intelligence and occupational stress that seem to affect performance significantly.
Highlights
Greece is facing the most severe financial crisis in its recent history
In this paper we investigate the effect of occupational stress and emotional intelligence on the performance of health-care employees, working in the operating room department
This suggests that there is no difference among men and women in the level of emotional intelligence in the working environment, and that there is no significant difference in the way the two genders experience occupational stress (t = −472, p = .638) (Table 2)
Summary
Greece is facing the most severe financial crisis in its recent history. The Greek economy has shrunk by more than 25% since mid-2008; unemployment during this period has risen to a steady 25%, or about 1.2 million people. For the employees participating in the survey the average wage reduction was 24.3% before the effect of the increased taxation is taken into account. It follows that the financial crisis amplifies the effect and the perception of poor working conditions, it affects relationships among colleagues and presumably it affects employee performance. In this respect, a plethora of studies have demonstrated the strong relationship between emotional intelligence and occupational stress in relation to job performance. Few studies have studied these above relationships in the health-care and medical domain and their effect on job performance, which are the scope of this study
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