Trait emotional intelligence: a strategy for managing nurses’ affective wellbeing at work

OP031 Trait emotional intelligence: a strategy for managing nurses’ affective wellbeing at work Purpose: To examine the effectiveness of a strategy for stress management and wellbeing for nurses based on trait emotional self-efficacy theory. The research hypothesis for this study is “nurses who are scoring high on trait emotional intelligence, they will also score high on job related affective wellbeing”. Design/Methodology: Eighty-four (n=84) nurses were randomly assigned into training (n=35) and control group (n=49) and completed measures on trait emotional intelligence, job satisfaction, job related affective wellbeing, coping, general health, social support, mastery and measures on neuroticism and extraversion. Training aimed to improve the fit between the person and the environment and give nurses a sense of control and space to reframe and reconstruct their views of their world. Results: The study found significant interaction between training and control group on global trait emotional intelligence F(1,82)=14.369, MSE=9.291, p=.000), but nurses were also found to have improved significantly on job satisfaction, coping, negative affectivity and general health. Limitations: High dropout rate was the main limitation to the study. Research/practical implications: This short training may be used for future educational development and research in nursing and other health care professional groups. Originality/Values: This study has provided some evidence that trait emotional intelligence is sensitive to training.