RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOR IN CRITICAL AND EMERGENCY NURSES IN SOUTH EAST OF IRAN

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Several factors including emotional intelligence affect the efficiency of people. Itseems that organizational behavior of each person is strongly influenced by emotional intelligence.Therefore, the present study is aimed to examine the relationship between emotional intelligence andorganizational citizenship behavior in critical and emergency nurses in teaching hospitals supervised byKerman Medical University in Southeast of Iran.METHODS: This study employed a descriptive cross sectional design. A census sample consisted of 150critical and emergency nurses working in teaching hospitals supervised by Kerman Medical Universityparticipated in this study. Emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior questionnairewas used to assess nurses’ emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior by availablesampling method.RESULTS: The results showed that the mean age of the participants was 35 years. Most participants(94%) were females and belonged to the age group of 26-30 years. Overall mean score of organizationalcitizenship behavior scale was 88.21 (±10.4). In the organizational citizenship behavior categories,altruism mean score was higher than the other mean scores. Overall mean score of emotionalintelligence was (121.08 ± 17.56). In the subgroups of emotional intelligence, mean score of therelationship management, was higher than the average of other factors. Pearson's correlation coefficientshowed no significant relationship between emotional intelligence and organizational citizenshipbehavior (p ≥ 0.05).CONCLUSIONS: The study suggests that health care managers should organize systematic and dynamicpolicies and procedures in dealing with emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior toassist critical and emergency nurses.