Investigating the relationship between emotional intelligence and psychological empowerment of nursing managers of selected military hospitals

Nursing managers suffer a lot of stress due to the nature of their job. Emotional intelligence is the most important trait in the management category for adaptability and better job performance in critical and stressful times. Emotional intelligence helps decisively to better adapt to the surrounding environment or create a suitable environment to achieve effective management in health care and can also effectively increase the psychological empowerment of nursing managers in the work environment.

This research was conducted with the aim of determining the relationship between the emotional intelligence of nursing managers and the psychological empowerment of nursing managers of a selected military hospital.

This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on 195 nursing managers in the selected military hospital in 1401. Data collection tools included demographic information questionnaire, Bradbury and Graves (2005) emotional intelligence questionnaire, and Spritzer and Mishra (1997) empowerment questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS version 26 software using descriptive and analytical statistical tests (chi-square tests, t-test, ANOVA, analysis of variance and Pearson correlation).

139 (%71.3) nursing managers had average emotional intelligence, 56 (%28.7) had high emotional intelligence, and none of the managers had low emotional intelligence. There was a positive and strong correlation between the emotional intelligence score of the participants in the research with psychological empowerment (r=0.89) and a significant level (P<0.05).

The result of the study showed that emotional intelligence components positively affect the dimensions of psychological empowerment of military nursing managers. It is necessary to use the training strategy to improve emotional intelligence skills with an impact on the mental health of nursing managers of military hospitals in the face of crises and disasters and its effect on the psychological empowerment of nursing managers. Therefore, it is suggested that hospital managers increase the emotional intelligence of nursing managers in the treatment environment by holding training courses to lead to an increase in their psychological empowerment.