Investigation the Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Demographic Information of Nursing Students of Tehran University of Medical Sciences

Emotional Intelligence plays a key role on motivations and creation of effective communication through the efficient management and excitement employment. This study was conducted to determine relationship between emotional intelligence score and demographic information of students from Tehran University of Medical Sciences. This study is a descriptive cross sectional correlational study performed in 2013 in Nursing and Midwifery Department of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. The population of this research were 69 freshman semester one nursing students selected through the convenience sampling method. The data were gathered through the self-report method using a particular questionnaire. The questionnaire applied in this work consists of two parts: demographic information and a 41-item questionnaire of the revised Farsi Shateh emotional intelligence designed in 5 part Likert’s scale. Validity of the questionnaire was simultaneously and its reliability was satisfied through estimating the correlation coefficient between two tests (r=0.75) and internal consistency of the test questions (α=0.89) in the study conducted by Beshart (2007). Data derived from 69 questionnaires were analyzed using the mean, standard deviation, and chi-square and Z tests extracted by SPSS v.16 software. The mean emotional intelligence score and standard deviation of the students was obtained as 3.72 and 0.364, respectively. Students with diploma GPA below 17 had higher emotional intelligence score as compared to students with minimum diploma GPA of 17 (P<0.05). Moreover, no statistically significant relationship was observed between emotional intelligence score and variables including age, gender, career, housing condition, and previous emotional intelligence (P<0.05). Emotional intelligence is a kind of intelligence which, also confirmed by scientists, can lead to further success in the life and job. Since this intelligence is learnable and improvable for any age and gender, it is recommended to provide suitable trainings about it for students.