Emotional Intelligence and Workload in Nursing Professionals during COVID-19

Abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic evidenced that nursing professionals need to develop, among other skills, sufficient emotional intelligence to face the complex workload demanded by the situation.

Objective: To relate emotional intelligence and workload in nursing professionals in times of COVID-19.

Methods: A quantitative, cross-sectional, nonexperimental and correlational study was developed with a sample of 197 nurses from a hospital in Callao, Peru, in the period of March-July 2021. By means of a virtual survey, the TMMS-24 emotional intelligence scale and the Workload Assessment Questionnaire were applied. Correlation analysis was performed using Spearman's nonparametric rho test.

Results: 34 % of professionals presented average workload and adequate emotional intelligence, while 19.30 % presented average workload and emotional intelligence to be improved. Spearman's rho value of 0.047 determined that there is very low positive correlation between both variables.

Conclusions: During COVID-19, nursing professionals have demonstrated that they have adequate emotional intelligence and average work overload, with a very low relationship between the variables. There is a very low incidence of excellent emotional intelligence and no low workload in any of the services.