Emotional Intelligence: Better Nursing, Better Patient Care
Graduation Date
1-2012
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Document Form
Degree Name
Master of Science
Department
Nursing
Department or Program Chair
Eira Klich-Heartt, RN, MSN
Thesis Advisor
Eira Klich-Heartt, RN, MSN
Abstract
Emotional Intelligence (El) is a concept that has been utilized in industries such as high- tech, manufacturing, and the United States Military. These entities have begun to use various aspects of El within their training and recruitment fields and have found significant positive results. When applied to nursing, studies have shown that El can give nurses the ability to perform better, have increased job satisfaction, provide better patient care, and improve patient satisfaction.
Purpose: To assess what nurses on a medical/surgical unit know about El and to determine if nurses feel that development of El skills through a workshop would help nurses with improving their work environment.
Methods: For my project, I will be using a survey consisting of 23 questions: approximately one fifth of the questions will be demographics and the remainder opinion. The unit invited to participate will be all RNs on the 4 North floor of the Pacific Campus at California Pacific Medical Center. This unit has a patient population that mainly consists of but is not limited to orthopedic, gastrointestinal, bariatric, and dementia type medical/surgical patients. RNs will be invited to participate voluntarily. An information poster about the project will be placed in the nursing lounge along with surveys and a locked survey box for anonymous submission of completed surveys. The time required for completion of the survey is approximately ten minutes.
Results: Results for this project revealed no significant differences for all but one category analyzed: age. Results indicated a significant difference in older nurses with having heard of El. There was no significant correlation noted with knowledge of El and years of nursing, gender, or according to shift. Fifty percent of those surveyed did express an interest of 7 or more on a scale of 0 to 10 of attending an El workshop and encouraging their peers to attend with them.
Discussion: There is not much in the way of empirical research and data collected to date regarding nursing and El. The results have shown that there is a fair amount of knowledge among nurses with regard to El and there is an equal amount of interest as well with regard to learning more about El and how it can benefit nurses in their work environment.
Conclusion: This study is being conducted to assess knowledge of El among RNs on a medical/surgical floor and whether or not there exists an interest among RNs to participate in and encourage their peers to attend an El workshop should it be offered in the future by their employer.