Midwifery and Nursing Students’ Emotional Intelligence and Its Relation to Spiritual Intelligence

Introduction: Emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence can be complementary to make life healthy. Emotional intelligence indicates the recognition of one’s own feelings and using them to make the right decisions in life. Spiritual intelligence causes the stability of desirable traits by strengthening spirituality and thus, the individual moves towards growth and perfection. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence in nursing and midwifery students of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. Methods: This correlational study was performed on 130 MSc students of nursing and midwifery at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences during 2008-12 (20 percent of each year’s entrants) who were selected by stratified sampling method. Data collection tools were Bar-On’s emotional intelligence and King’s spiritual intelligence questionnaires. Data were analyzed by Pearson correlation coefficient and regression. Results: Results showed that there was a significant relationship between students’ emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence (P>0/05). Also, among the scales of emotional intelligence, the adjustment scale explained 0.13 of spiritual intelligence changes (P>0/05). Conclusion: Higher education authorities may benefit the results of this study to compile educational programs of emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence for midwifery and nursing students in order to strengthen the spiritual and emotional competencies in learners and also to help to overcome the shortfalls of skills necessary for nurses and midwives to successfully adapt to their workplace.