The Effect of Emotional Intelligence on Distress Tolerance and Burnout in Mashhad Forensic Staff, Iran

Having a healthy and efficient human resources is one of the requirements for the development of any organization. This study aims to investigate the effect of emotional intelligence on meta-emotional dimensions, stress tolerance, and burnout of forensic staff.

This study was a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest design and follow-up test with a control group. The statistical population of this study included all forensic staff in Mashhad. The statistical sample of this study including 30 employees by available were selected via sampling method and after initial evaluation were randomly replaced in two groups (15 people). The experimental group received metacognitive training and the control group was placed on a waiting list. Metacognitive training of Adrian Wells protocol (2015) was performed in 8 sessions of 90 min. Metacognition and Behavior and Monte Aha positive metacognition questionnaires, Simmons and Kaher (2005) distress tolerance questionnaire and Mezlach burnout were used to collect the data. For data collection, SPSS 22 software and repeated measures analysis of variance were utilized.

The findings showed that metacognitive training can be effective on the domain of happiness, stress tolerance, and burnout (P<0.05).

Findings indicate that metacognitive intervention has been associated with the increased distress tolerance and meta-emotional dimensions and reduced burnout. Given that the most essential ability relevant to emotional intelligence is the awareness of people of their emotions and meta-emotions and the metacognitive training increases this awareness, metacognitive intervention can help improve people's performance.