A Study on Emotional Intelligence at Health Care Industry

Nitin Girdharwal

Capacity for effectively recognizing and managing emotions. It has the potential to get in the way of most important and personal relationships.

Research in a variety of industries and job levels reveals that Emotional Intelligence was two times more importance in contributing to excellence than intellect and expertise alone. Health Care Industry who are also in the threshold of change responsible to the call to excellence by creation of a culture that integrates emotional intelligence in the supporting staff that has the power to influence outcomes by being the hospital’s greatest asset in relationship building at a health care centre.

Introduction:

The furious pace of change in business today pose difficulty to manage relationships which sabotage business more than anything else – it is not a question of strategy that gets us into trouble, it is a question of emotions. Researchers and professionals of management and human behavior ignored the importance of emotions and the ability (intelligence) handling the emotions in day-to-day life situations till such a concept of Emotional intelligence was highlighted by Daniel Goleman in the book published during 1995. It is believed that learning difficulties as well as various problems of maladjustment at the workplace is due to the poorly developed emotional awareness, which when developed help people to respond to a variety of environmental situations (Singh, 2001). Emotional Intelligence provides the ability to take optimal advantage of one’s innate capabilities by regulating and making use of one’s own emotions. It allows individuals to create human environments in which they can fully apply their abilities and accumulated experience. [1], [2], [3] & [4].

What is Emotions?

The term emotion has been derived from the Latin ‘emover’, which may be translated to move, to excite or to agitate. Today, the term emotion is used as an umbrella to any subjective experience. The term is used to express love, hate, attraction, aggression, or any other such powerful feeling. Most of the affairs of everyday life are tinged with feeling and emotion. Sorrow and joy, disappointment and love, dismay and hope – are the feelings we experience in the course of day or week. Without such feelings our life would be quite plain and dull. We remember with warm glow the pleasant moments we lived; we anticipate with pleasure our successes and victories. On the other hand when our emotions are so intense or out of our control (and too easily  aroused), they can get us in frequent trouble. Emotions may also wrap our judgment, turn friends into enemies and make us miserable as we were sick with fever. [5], [6], [7] & [8]

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotions have the potential to get in the way of our most important business and personal relationships. A key part in personal and social success is emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the capacity for effectively recognizing and managing our own emotions and those of others. Studies show that IQ alone will not make success in life and that the recipe for excellence gives far more weight to emotional competencies than to cognitive abilities. Emotional competence matters twice as much as IQ and expertise for excellent performance in all jobs. Top performers are found to be strong in each of the five emotional intelligence areas: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills Goleman (1998).

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is used interchangeably with Emotional Quotient (EQ). In simple terms, EI refers to emotional awareness and emotional management skill which provide the ability to balance emotion and reason as to maximize long term happiness. It is being able to monitor our own and others feelings and emotions (Salovey and Mayer 1990). The emotionally skilled person is skilled in four areas: Identifying, using, understanding and regulating emotions. According to Golemen (1995) EI consists of five components: Knowing our emotions (self awareness), managing them, motivating ourselves, recognizing emotions in others (empathy) and handling relationships. [1], [8], [9] & [10]

Emotional Intelligence at Health Care

The quality of relationships within an organization significantly impacts productivity or the quality of the product itself. Health care organizations are no exception. In a study of the effects of nursing structure and processes on selected patient outcomes, Sovie and Jawad (2001) found that the relationships between nursing staff from different units was a strong predictor of patient satisfaction and hard evidence also exists for the value of relationships in the delivery of patient care. Performance matters more than ever, but is no longer measured on the basis of clinical (Doctors) skill alone. Excellence in supporting staff involves the ability to provide an overall positive health care experience for patients and their families (Alderman, 2001). [1], [10], [11], [12] & [14]

Objectives of this Study

To Study the emotional intelligence of supporting staff in a large health care centre.

To study, if there is a relationship between the age of supporting staff & their emotional intelligence.

To study, if there is an association between the gender and their emotional intelligence.

Research Methodology

In order to study the emotional intelligence of supporting staff, an Emotional Intelligence test (Singh, 2001) was used which was based on three components namely: [13], [18] & [19]

·Emotional Sensitivity - Interpretation of human expressions and responding to them with sensitivity and empathy.

·Emotional Maturity - Adapting to emotion laden situations.

·Emotional Competence - Emotional self control and increased levels of optimism.

Sample Size

120 Respondents across various specialties were selected based on random sampling method.

Table 1: Mean Scores of Emotional Intelligence Components with respect to Age

Table 2 : Mean Scores of Emotional Intelligence Components with respect to Gender

Analysis of Data

The mean and standard deviations were worked out for each of the sub components comprising the Emotional Intelligence (EI) Questionnaire. Correlation was used to test the relationship of Emotional Intelligence with respect of age and gender.

Table 1 reveals that there is definitely a positive relationship (correlation coefficient: 8.98) between emotional intelligence with respect to age. It shows that as age progress the scores on the components of emotional intelligence increases and vice versa.

Table 2 shows that there is a significant difference in the perception of male and female supporting staff with respect to their perception towards the components of emotional intelligence.

Findings

1.The emotional intelligence of supporting staff increases as age progresses. This is similar to the comparison of Salovey and Mayers’s (1990) study that in an evaluation of more than 3000 men and women of ages varying from teens to 50’s, revealed small but steady and significant increases in emotional intelligence with advancing age. Further a peak was observed in the 40’s age group. They confirmed that emotional intelligence developed with increasing age and experience as a person progressed from childhood to adulthood.

2. Emotional maturity tends to be the after an age of 40. This seems too similar to Mayer’s study (1990) where a peak was observed in the 40’s age group and thereafter similar.

3. There is a significant difference in the perception of emotional intelligence with respect to male and female supporting staff. Though men and women have are equal in their ability to increase emotional intelligence, women tend to be stronger than men on competencies based on empathy and self regulation.

4. Emotional Sensitivity increases as age increases and vice versa. This may be due to the reason that age progression increases experience with life and henceforth increases interpretation of human expression and responding to them with sensitivity and empathy.

Conclusion:

The good news about emotional intelligence is that, unlike IQ, it can be improved throughout the life. In a serendipitous fashion, life often innumerable chances to tone our emotions competence. In a normal course of a lifetime emotional intelligence tends to increase as we learn to be more aware of feelings, effectively handle distressing emotions, to listen and empathize. To a greater extent, people become more mature as they become more sensitive to the feeling to others. [16], [17], [18], [19] & [20]

References:

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2.Rippon, S.(2001). Nurturing nursing leadership: How does your garden grow? Nursing Management, 8(7), 11-15.

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8. Hay/McBer Research and Innovation Group (1997). This research was provided to Danial Goleman and is reported in his book (Goleman, 1998).

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14. Seligman, M.E.P. (1990). Learned optimism. New York: Knopf.

15. Boyatzis, R.(1982). The competent manager: A model for effective performance. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

16. RK Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe: The Free Press, Revised and Enlarged Edition, 1957), p. 265ff.

17. DBN Murthy, of Man and Management.

18. http://www2.pfeiffer.edu/~lridener/courses/IMPMGT.HTML

19. http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/social_psychology/53283.

20. http://www.citehr.com/impression-management-vt1724.html

About Authors:

Nitin Girdharwal

krishna institute of engineering and  Technology, Ghaziabad, UP (India)

Corresponding author

AjaypalSingh