Background: Nursing professionals face a variety of stressful situations daily, where the patients' own stresses and the demands of their family members are the most important sources of such stress. Methods: The main objectives pursued were to describe the relationships of self-efficacy and emotional intelligence with perceived stress in a sample of nursing professionals. We also developed predictive models for each of the components of perceived stress based on the dimensions of emotional intelligence and self-efficacy, for the total sample, as well as samples differentiated by sex. This study sample consisted of 1777 nurses and was conducted using multiple scales: the perceived stress questionnaire, general self-efficacy scale, and the brief emotional intelligence survey for senior citizens. Results: The variables stress management, mood, adaptability, intrapersonal skills, and self-efficacy explained 22.7% of the variance in the harassment-social component, while these same variables explained 28.9% of the variance in the irritability-tension-fatigue dimension. The variables mood, stress management, self-efficacy, intrapersonal, and interpersonal explained 38.6% of the variance in the energy-joy component, of which the last variable offers the most explanatory capacity. Finally, the variables stress management, mood, interpersonal, self-efficacy and intrapersonal skills explained 27.2% of the variance in the fear-anxiety dimension. Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that one way to reduce stress in professionals would be to help them improve their emotional intelligence in programs (tailored to consider particularities of either sex) within the framework of nursing, enabling them to develop and acquire more effective stress coping strategies, which would alleviate distress and increase the wellbeing of health professionals.
Keywords: health behavior; quantitative methods; training health professionals; worksite health; worksite health promotion.