Nursing students' leadership and emotional intelligence in Turkey

Relationships between leadership orientations and emotional intelligence in nursing students

PURPOSE

To describe the relationship between leadership orientation and emotional intelligence levels of nursing students.

METHOD

The study is a cross-sectional and descriptive correlational study.

RESULTS

This study was carried out with 320 nursing students. There was a positive relationship between the mean scores for the Leadership Orientations subdimensions and the mean scores for the overall Emotional Intelligence Evaluation Scale and its subdimensions.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

More studies are needed to examine the relationship between students' emotional intelligence and leadership orientations.

Anxiety levels among health sciences students during their first visit to the dissection room

BACKGROUND

The teaching of human anatomy is often based on practices of cadaver dissection and prosected specimens. However, exposure to human cadavers might be stressful and anxiety-inducing for students. The aim of this study is to explore the degree of satisfaction and anxiety among first-year students in the Medicine, Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy and Nursing programmes at the Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) who are experiencing their first dissection/prosection practice to develop stress coping strategies.

METHODS

A total of 204 health sciences students participated in this study. The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was used to evaluate anxiety.

RESULTS

'State Anxiety' (SA) decreased significantly throughout the course (p < 0.05), from 20.7 ± 19.29 to 13.7 ± 11.65 points. Statistical differences (p < 0.05) in SA were found between the different health sciences, and pre-practice SA was significantly different from post-practice SA. The students with the highest pre-practice SA levels were nursing students (31.8 ± 33.7 points), but medical students had the highest post-practice SA levels (18.4 ± 12.82 points).

CONCLUSIONS

Although students were satisfied with dissection practices (96.8% of them recommended that the practices be retained for future courses), the experience can provoke stressful responses that must be addressed using advanced preparation and coping mechanisms, especially among medical and nursing students.

'It's the relationship you develop with them': emotional intelligence in nurse leadership. A qualitative study

AIM

to investigate emotional intelligence (EI) and its relationship to nursing leadership.

BACKGROUND

strong, effective leadership is core to organisational competency and significantly influences care quality. EI is the ability to understand one's own feelings and to assess and respond to the feelings of others. It is linked to self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social skills, all of which are vital in leadership roles. However, insufficient research explores EI in nursing leadership from the perspective of nurse leaders.

DESIGN

a qualitative study employed interpretive phenomenological analysis methods, using a purposive sample of band 7 sisters/charge nurses/team managers (n=5) from one Welsh health board. Semistructured interviews were recorded and analysed in four stages.

FINDINGS

four clusters of themes were identified, each with two to three subthemes. These were: sensing others-the empathetic leader; experiencing the affected sense of self; strategies employed to build the team; and reading the flux of the organisation.

CONCLUSION

although the nurse leaders were unfamiliar with the concept of EI, their narratives reflected some core values of EI. However, significant barriers around time, pressure and staffing levels impeded their potential to use EI to become more effective leaders. Nurse leaders should harness the power of emotions to influence others to achieve excellent care.

Emotional intelligence among nursing students: Findings from a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

Emotional intelligence in nursing is of global interest. International studies identify that emotional intelligence influences nurses' work and relationships with patients. It is associated with compassion and care. Nursing students scored higher on measures of emotional intelligence compared to students of other study programmes. The level of emotional intelligence increases with age and tends to be higher in women.

OBJECTIVES

This study aims to measure the differences in emotional intelligence between nursing students with previous caring experience and those without; to examine the effects of gender on emotional intelligence scores; and to test whether nursing students score higher than engineering colleagues on emotional intelligence measures.

DESIGN

A cross-sectional descriptive study design was used.

SETTINGS AND PARTICIPANTS

The study included 113 nursing and 104 engineering students at the beginning of their first year of study at a university in Slovenia.

DATA

Emotional intelligence was measured using the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue) and Schutte Self Report Emotional Intelligence Test (SSEIT).

METHODS

Shapiro-Wilk's test of normality was used to test the sample distribution, while the differences in mean values were tested using Student t-test of independent samples.

RESULTS

Emotional intelligence was higher in nursing students (n = 113) than engineering students (n = 104) in both measures [TEIQue t = 3.972; p < 0.001; SSEIT t = 8.288; p < 0.001]. Although nursing female students achieved higher emotional intelligence scores than male students on both measures, the difference was not statistically significant [TEIQue t = -0.839; p = 0.403; SSEIT t = -1.159; p = 0.249]. EI scores in nursing students with previous caring experience were not higher compared to students without such experience for any measure [TEIQue t = -1.633; p = 0.105; SSEIT t = -0.595; p = 0.553].

CONCLUSIONS

Emotional intelligence was higher in nursing than engineering students, and slightly higher in women than men. It was not associated with previous caring experience.

Stereological Evaluation of the Brains in Patients with Parkinson’s disease Compared to Controls

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a chronic and progressive neurological disorder. A tetrad of bradykinesia, rigidity, tremor and postural instability are the core features of the disease. The aim of this study was to evaluate stereological changes in the brain of patients with PD and compare them with that of healthy controls. This case-control study was conducted on 29 patients with PD and 12 controls (C) in Zahedan, Iran. All subjects enrolled into the study through the convenience sampling method. MRI images of the brains of two groups in frontal and sagittal axis with consecutive 5mm distance slices were captured. Parameters including total volume (V) and volume density (Vv) of different parts of the brain were estimated based on Cavalries’ point counting stereological method. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U-Test applied for comparing the PD and C groups were used. Significance level was set at p<0.05. Our study showed that the volume of the brain and total volume and volume density (Vv) of cerebral hemispheres, cerebellum, ventricles, hippocampus, pons, mid brain and superior cerebellar peduncles in the PD group did not indicate significant difference from the control group. Total volume of brain stem in PD group wasn’t significantly different from the control group. The volume density of brain stem (p= 0.012) and total volume and volume density of middle cerebellar peduncle (p< 0.0001) in PD group were significantly larger than the control group. This study shows that PD stereological parameters related to volume and volume density of middle cerebellar peduncle and volume density of brain stem were significantly larger in patients compared to the controls. Therefore, stereological parameters can be used for early diagnosis and probably for follow-up in patients with PD.

Identifying emotional intelligence skills of Turkish clinical nurses according to sociodemographic and professional variables

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to identify the emotional intelligence skills of Turkish clinical nurses according to sociodemographic and professional variables.

BACKGROUND

Emotional intelligence is "the ability of a person to comprehend self-emotions, to show empathy towards the feelings of others, and to control self-emotions in a way that enriches life." Nurses with a higher emotional intelligence level offer more efficient and professional care, and they accomplish more in their social and professional lives.

DESIGN

We designed a descriptive cross-sectional study. The Introductory Information Form and the Bar-On emotional intelligence Inventory were used to collect data between 20th June and 20th August 2012.

METHOD

The study was conducted with 312 nurses from 37 hospitals located within the borders of the metropolitan municipality in Ankara.

RESULTS

There were no significant differences between emotional intelligence scores of the nurses according to demographic variables such as age, gender, marital status, having children. Thus, sociodemographic factors did not appear to be key factors, but some professional variables did. Higher total emotional intelligence scores were observed in those who had 10 years or longer experience, who found oneself successful in professional life, who stated that emotional intelligence is an improvable skill and who previously received self-improvement training. Interpersonal skills were higher in those with a graduate degree and in nurses working in polyclinics and paediatric units.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings indicate which groups require improvement in emotional intelligence skills and which skills need improvement. Additionally, these results provide knowledge and create awareness about emotional intelligence skills of nurses and the distribution of these skills according to sociodemographic and professional variables.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

Implementation of emotional intelligence improvement programmes targeting the determined clinical nursing groups by nursing administrations can help the increase in emotional intelligence.

Conflict management styles, emotional intelligence and implicit theories of personality of nursing students: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

Conflict management is an essential skill that nursing students need to master as conflict is unavoidable in clinical settings. Examining nursing students' conflict management styles and the associating factors can inform nurse educators on how to equip nursing students for effective conflict management.

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed at examining undergraduate nursing students conflict management styles in managing conflict with their supervisors in clinical placement. The associations of emotional intelligence and implicit theories of personality with conflict management styles were also investigated.

DESIGN

This is a cross-sectional quantitative survey.

SETTING

This study took place at a nursing school at a university in Hong Kong.

PARTICIPANTS

568 undergraduate nursing students participated in the study.

METHODS

Students completed a questionnaire which consisted of demographics, Measure of Implicit Theories of Personality, The Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale (SEIS) and The Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory-II (ROCI-II) and received a HKD 20 book coupon as compensation. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, reliability analyses, t-tests, correlational and linear regression analyses.

RESULTS

For managing conflict with clinical supervisors, students used obliging and integrating most frequently whereas used dominating least. Emotional intelligence was a significant predictor of all five conflict management styles. The higher the emotional intelligence, the more students used integrating, obliging, compromising and dominating. The lower the emotional intelligence, the more students used avoiding. There was a significant association between implicit theories of personality and compromising. The less malleable students perceived personality to be, the more they used compromising.

CONCLUSIONS

Emotional intelligence was significantly associated with all five conflict management styles while implicit theories of personality were significantly associated with compromising style only. Efforts of nurse educators to enhance students' conflict management skills and emotional intelligence to face conflicts in clinical settings are discussed.

Measured emotional intelligence ability and grade point average in nursing students

BACKGROUND

For most schools of nursing, grade point average is the most important criteria for admission to nursing school and constitutes the main indicator of success throughout the nursing program. In the general research literature, the relationship between traditional measures of academic success, such as grade point average and postgraduation job performance is not well established. In both the general population and among practicing nurses, measured emotional intelligence ability correlates with both performance and other important professional indicators postgraduation. Little research exists comparing traditional measures of intelligence with measured emotional intelligence prior to graduation, and none in the student nurse population.

OBJECTIVE

This exploratory, descriptive, quantitative study was undertaken to explore the relationship between measured emotional intelligence ability and grade point average of first year nursing students.

DESIGN SETTING AND SAMPLE

The study took place at a school of nursing at a university in the south central region of the United States. Participants included 72 undergraduate student nurse volunteers.

METHODS

Emotional intelligence was measured using the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test, version 2, an instrument for quantifying emotional intelligence ability. Pre-admission grade point average was reported by the school records department.

RESULTS

Total emotional intelligence (r=.24) scores and one subscore, experiential emotional intelligence(r=.25) correlated significantly (>.05) with grade point average.

CONCLUSIONS

This exploratory, descriptive study provided evidence for some relationship between GPA and measured emotional intelligence ability, but also demonstrated lower than average range scores in several emotional intelligence scores. The relationship between pre-graduation measures of success and level of performance postgraduation deserves further exploration. The findings of this study suggest that research on the relationship between traditional and nontraditional measures of academic success, and emotional intelligence correlation with postgraduation performance, is warranted.

Accelerated baccalaureate nursing students use of emotional intelligence in nursing as "caring for a human being": a mixed methods grounded theory study

Accelerated nursing students are ideal informants regarding abstract nursing concepts. How emotional intelligence (EI) is used in nursing remains a relatively elusive process that has yet to be empirically modeled. The purpose of this study was to generate a theoretical model that explains how EI is used in nursing by accelerated baccalaureate nursing students. Using a mixed methods grounded theory study design, theoretical sampling of EI scores directed sampling for individual interviews and focus groups. Caring for a human being emerged as the basic social process at the heart of which all other processes--Getting it; Being caring; The essence of professional nurse caring; Doing something to make someone feel better; and Dealing with difficulty--are interconnected. In addition to a theoretical explanation of the use of EI in nursing, this study corroborates findings from other qualitative studies in nursing and contributes a rich description of accelerated baccalaureate nursing students and an example of a mixed methods study design to the small but growing literature in these areas.