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 emotional work related 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, 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); however, nurses were not found to have improved significantly on job satisfaction, coping, affective wellbeing and general health despite increases found in these measures post training. Limitations: High dropout rate was the main limitation to the study. Research/practical implications: This short training strategy was developed to improve the fit between the person and the environment which may be utilized for future educational development and research. Originality/Values: This study presents an innovative way to improve perceptions of emotional work related wellbeing for a high level emotional labor professional group.

ID 46/OS3:1