Emotional intelligence and it's relation to stress coping strategies and academic achievement among Faculty of Nursing students

Abstract

Background: Emotional intelligence and coping with stressors is a major contributing factor that affecting success in nursing profession. Therefore, it is very important for the faculties of nursing to help their students to grow up their emotional intelligence and coping skills to achieve great success in nursing. Aim of the study: to assess emotional intelligence and it's relation to stress coping strategies and academic achievement among Faculty of Nursing students. Research design: A descriptive correlational research design. Sample: A representative sample of nursing students among four academic years during 2016-2017 (N= 384). Setting: Faculty of Nursing at Minia University. Tools of data collection: included two tools; first tool emotional intelligence scale; second tool ways of coping questionnaire. Results: There were highly statistically significant relations between seven stress coping strategies and emotional intelligence scores (p= 0.000), while escaping avoidance strategy was the only one that had no statistically significant relations with emotional intelligence and negatively correlation (r= -0, 060, p= 0.240). There were no statistically significant differences between scores of emotional intelligence components and academic achievement; while the stress coping had statistically significant differences with academic achievement. Conclusion: High emotional intelligence leads to higher coping with stressors that affect positively on academic achievement of nursing students. Recommendation: Periodical workshops for students to develop their EI competences and stress coping.