The effect of emotional intelligence intervention on nursing students’ practice and patients’ clinical outcomes at burn intensive care unit

Abstract

Background and objective: Emotional intelligence in nursing practice helps students better deal with clinical pressures and communicates effectively with patients. Therefore, developing students' emotional maturity may seem more important than their physical responsibilities. The current study was carried out to evaluate the effect of emotional intelligence intervention on nursing students’ practice and their reflections on patients’ clinical outcomes at burn intensive care unit.

Methods: This study was carried out in the Faculty of Nursing, Tanta University and Burn Intensive Care Unit at Tanta Emergency Hospital. A quasi experimental research design was utilized in the current study. A convenience sample of 120 undergraduate second year nursing students who studied critical care nursing course at academic year 2017-2018 were selected. They were divided into two equal groups, 60 students in each group as follows: Group I: Students were exposed to emotional intelligence intervention and clinical procedures. Group II: Students were exposed to clinical procedures only. In addition, a convenience sample of 60 adult critically patients with severe burn injury were selected and divided into two equal groups, 30 in each group as follow: Group I: Patients were exposed to intervention from nursing students who were undergoing emotional intelligence intervention during clinical procedures. Group II: Patients were exposed to intervention from nursing students who were trained on clinical procedures only. Three tools were used to collect the study data. Tool I: Emotional Intelligence Scale, Tool II: Nursing student's: observational checklist, and Tool III: Critically ill patient with severe burn injury’s clinical outcomes assessment.

Results: There was a statistically significant improvement in the total practice mean score level among nursing students in group I than group II. Also, patients who received care from group I showed improvement in physical and psychological outcome compared to students in group II.

Conclusions: Based on the results of the present study, it can be concluded that, merging emotional intelligence into practice is a favorable method which provides the undergraduate nursing students with a higher level of practice regarding burn intensive care unit. Students who acquired intelligence practice had a statistical significant effect on improving psychological and physical outcomes of patients with severe burn injury than nursing students who are not exposed to such emotional intelligence intervention during clinical practice. Recommendation: The emotional intelligence should be incorporated into the critical care nursing course and training the students’ about the appropriate way of implementation to improve their knowledge and practice and improve patients’ clinical outcomes.