A study of the emotional intelligence of employees at a District Hospital of Greece

• Main Authors: Sofia Zyga, Polychronis Efkarpidis, Apostolos Efkarpidis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Professor Despina Sapountzi-Krepia 2012-01-01
• Series: International Journal of Caring Sciences
• Subjects: Emotional Intelligence; Empathy; Health Organizations
• Online Access: http://internationaljournalofcaringsciences.org/docs/Vol5_Issue1_05_Efkarpidis.pdf
• ISSN: 1791-5201; 1792-037X

Background: The role of emotional intelligence is one of the main issues in modern management. Contemporary terms withsemiotic meaning that target emotions, such as ‘leading with the heart’, ‘the art of influence’, ‘team mind’ and ‘teamintelligence quotient’, are now quite frequent in Greek and International literature.The objective of this study was the investigation of the level of emotional intelligence in three professional groups ofemployees in a district hospital.Methods: The population of the study consisted of 132 employees of a General Regional Hospital (doctors, nurses,administrative employees). The “Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI)”, which was developed in 1999 by Goleman,Boyatzis and Rhee and is applied in organizational environments after relevant permission, was used for data collection.Chi-square test and Takey test (ANOVA / POST –HOC) were used in the statistical analysis of the data, which wasperformed with SPSS and Microsoft Office Excel.Results: Chi-square test was used to investigate the relationship between the answers of every professional group, therelationship between males and females of the population of the study, as well as the relationship between the educationlevel of the study’s population. Important differences were found. The values of the answers were summed up (Likert-scale– additive model) and were converted to z-scores. According to the study’s model, nurses of the hospital in question are firstin self-awareness, social awareness and cognitive thought; whereas self-management was found in doctors and relationshipmanagement was found in administrative employees.Conclusions: The analysis of the results indicates differences between the professional groups and distinctively points outthe qualitative characteristic elements of each profession which relate with the subfactors that investigate emotionalintelligence. The difference between professionals in how they manage their tasks with emotional intelligence affects thequalitative characteristics of the services that they produce and offer.