Congratulations to Drs. Darren Iwamoto and Edna Magpantay-Monroe whose interdisciplinary and intercollegiate collaboration with the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa resulted in a publication in the Annals of Nursing and Practice.
The team looked at sample empirical evidence suggesting emotional intelligence (EI) abilities correlate with performance, retention and burn out prevention in both the general population and among health care providers. Although EI is a relatively new concept that has emerged over the past 20 years, hundreds of workforce research studies have provided evidence of its importance. Because of the importance of understanding emotional intelligence within a diverse nursing workforce, and concomitantly the importance of nurses’ emotional intelligence ability, this study was undertaken to explore the relationship between ethnicity and emotional intelligence in nurses. The study was a quantitative, descriptive, retrospective secondary analysis of 5 studies carried out in Hawaii. All involved practicing nurses and nursing students. No significant differences were identified among the mean total EI score among the seven ethnic groups studied. When Caucasian participants were compared as a group with the remaining participants as a group, the understanding emotions, managing emotions, and strategic use of emotions sub-scores were significantly higher among the Caucasian participants. When Asians were compared with all other study participants as a group, the Asian participants’ strategic EI scores were significantly lower. Lastly, when Caucasians as a group and Asians as a group were compared, the following Caucasian participants’ scores were significantly higher: branch scores understanding emotions and managing emotions; area scores: strategic use of emotions. Findings from this study demonstrated clear sub score variation between ethnic groups included in this study. This variation could be explained by the widely reported concern for cultural bias in standardized testing, or could also be a reflection of variation in the perception and performance of emotional intelligence abilities among cultural groups.
If you are interested in reading their work, you may view the article here.
Citation: Codier E, Iwamoto D, Monroe M, Jarvis S (2017) Diversity Tools: The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Ethnicity in Nurses. Ann Nurs Pract 4(1): 1076.