Aware that engagement in the healthcare field needs high levels of emotional intelligence, we began this study to determine relationship between engagement and emotional intelligence in nurses. The objective of this study was to determine the explanatory value of the components of emotional intelligence for engagement in a sample of nurses. The final study sample was made up of 2126 working nursing professionals. Data was obtained by distributing, an ad hoc questionnaire was used to collect sociodemographic information, and to collect professional and employment information, the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale and the Reduced Emotional Intelligence Inventory for Adults were used. The results showed that nurses with higher levels of emotional intelligence also scored more highly in engagement, with the interpersonal factor being the greatest predictor of engagement. This study has significant practical implications for the creation of intervention programs and activities to improve the performance of nurses in the workplace.
Keywords: emotional intelligence; engagement; nurses.