Stressors inherent to clinical practices and their relationship with emotional intelligence in nursing students: A cross sectional study

Abstract

Background: There is a wide body of knowledge about Emotional Intelligence and its benefits in health care, generating better productivity, clinical performance and communication with work teams, patients and families. Its relationship with stress and with performance of clinical practices has also been studied, although the results are not conclusive or up-to-date.

Objectives: To study and correlate the perception of Emotional Intelligence and the stressors inherent to Nursing students' clinical practices.

Design: A multicenter and observational study was carried out through cross-sectional surveys with Nursing students during the 2021/2022 academic year.

Participants: 377 students were included in the study, recruited through non-probabilistic sampling in four Spanish universities.

Methods: Sociodemographic and academic variables were collected, as well as the following main variables: perceived Emotional Intelligence and stressors in clinical practices.

Results: The study sample consisted of 377 students (89.1 % women; mean age of 23.15 ± 5.50). The perception of Emotional Intelligence obtained adequate ranges. The stressors that generate most concern are being attacked by the patients, lack of competence, and impotence and uncertainty. There are statistically significant differences in Emotional Intelligence by gender and university, as well as in stressors between each other. The Emotional Intelligence dimensions are weakly correlated with the stressors, although with statistical significance.

Conclusions: This study shows that Emotional Intelligence slightly influences the stressors inherent to clinical practices, so that EI can help cope with the difficulties of clinical work. Specifically, emotional clarity has an inverse relationship with some stressors. However, the attention and repair dimensions do not present such a clear relationship in our study or in previous ones. This shows the need to include Emotional Intelligence training in Nursing training curricula.

Keywords: Clinical clerkship (MeSH, DeCS); Emotional intelligence (MeSH, DeCS); Nursing (MeSH, DeCS); Psychological (MeSH, DeCS); Stress; Students.