The relationship between emotional intelligence and professional competence among nursing managers

The leadership of an organization needs specific features to adapt to changes. One of these features is nurse managers' emotional intelligence that should be identified and, if needed, learned to increase the competence of nursing managers. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and professional competence of nursing managers. Material & Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on 105 nursing managers by census method in teaching hospitals in South Khorasan Province in 2016. Data were collected through demographic information questionnaire, managers' competence questionnaire Chase(2010) and Shering (1996) questionair's for emotional intelligence. The reliability of this questionnaire has been confirmed by experts through Alpha-Cronbach's coefficient (0.84) and its content validity. Data was analyzed by SPSS software 16 using descriptive and analytical methods (t-test, analysis of variance and Pearson correlation coefficient). The mean score of emotional intelligence in nursing managers was (105.25 ± 17.94), which indicates that most participants are in a good level in terms of emotional intelligence and the mean score of competency (280.10 ± 46.84) As a result, nursing managers are on average. There was a significant positive correlation between the emotional intelligence score of the participants in the research with their competencies (p <0.001). It is suggested to policy makers that they consider " emotional intelligent " as a main criteria for nurse manager selection. Also , they planning continuing education in this subject for nurse managers.