A Survey of The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and General Health Status, Self-Efficacy, Self-Regulation, and Self-Esteem among Students of State High Schools in Isfahan, Iran

There has been growing interest in adolescents’ emotional intelligence. The strengthening of its various components including general health, self-efficacy, self-regulation, and self-esteem seems necessary. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and general health, self-efficacy, self-regulation, and self-esteem in second grade students in public high schools of Isfahan, Iran.
This descriptive-analytical, cross-sectional study was conducted on 240 second grade students in high schools in 2015. The subjects were selected through multistage random sampling. They completed a demographic characteristics questionnaire, Shiring’s Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire, Goldberg's General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), Self-regulation Questionnaire, General Self-Efficacy Scale (Sherer et al.), and Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory (CSEI). The data were analyzed using Pearson correlation, Spearman’s correlation, and independent t-test in SPSS software.
Findings: Based on the correlation test, there was significant relation between emotional intelligence and self-efficacy (P = 0.001), self-esteem (P = 0.001), and general health (P = 0.001), but the relation between emotional intelligence and self-regulation was not significant (P = 0.221).
Attention to the improvement of emotional intelligence considering gender differences can be effective on the improvement of self-efficacy, self-esteem, and self-regulation skills and general health, and thus, it is important in educational programs for students.