Training Emotional Intelligence Skills and Nurses’ Job Satisfaction

Abstract

Background: Job satisfaction is among the most important factors for nurses’ productivity and professional interest. Previous studies showed a significant correlation between job satisfaction and emotional intelligence. Objectives: The current study aimed to examine the effects of training emotional intelligence skills on different aspects of nurses’ job satisfaction. Methods: This pretest-posttest controlled quasi-experimental study was conducted in 2013. A random sample of 32 nurses was collected from Valiasr and Imam Reza teaching hospitals, Birjand, Iran. All the nurses recruited from each of these two hospitals were allocated to experimental and control groups. Study data were gathered by a researcher-made questionnaire consisted of items on nurses’ demographic characteristics and job satisfaction. The job satisfaction part included 62 items scored on a six-point Likert-type scale from 5 to 1 (very satisfied, satisfied, mildly satisfied, dissatisfied, very dissatisfied, and I have no idea). Therefore, the possible total score of this part of the questionnaire ranged from 62 to 372. A training program was developed based on the Bradberry and Greaves program including training four emotional intelligence skills in ten sessions. The skills include self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. The nurses’ job satisfaction was evaluated both before and after the study intervention. The gathered data were transferred into the SPSS software ver. 18.0 and analyzed through conducting the paired- and the independent-samples T tests at significance level of 0.05. Results: Most of the nurses in the experimental and the control groups were female (14 and 10 nurses, respectively). The means of nurses’ age in these groups were respectively 35.6 ± 3.7 and 33.1 ± 3.8 years. There was a significant difference between the pretest and the posttest values of job satisfaction among nurses in the experimental group (P < 0.001). Moreover, the study groups differed significantly regarding the posttest scores of job satisfaction (P = 0.008) and its four domains of organizational culture (P = 0.04), psychosocial (P = 0.03), relationships (P = 0.01) and welfare (P = 0.09). Conclusions: Emotional intelligence training can indirectly enhance nurses’ job satisfaction through promoting their psychological health, decision making ability, social, communication and sympathy skills (which are the components of psychosocial, organizational culture and relationship domains of job satisfaction), as well as optimism, flexibility, self-esteem and self-respect (i e, the facility domain of job satisfaction). Implementing in-service training programs is recommended to improve nurses’ emotional intelligence skills and job satisfaction.