Emotional intelligence and stress among newly graduated nurses / Nurul Atikah Azhan and Nursabrina Rasid

Background: Study that conducted in Hospital Kuala Lumpur among ward nurses reveals that out of 110 registered nurses who respond in the survey, approximately 24.6% of nurses perceived occupational stress (Zainiyah, Afiq, Chow, & Sara, 2011). Objective: To measure emotional intelligence (EI) and perceived stress (PS) in newly graduated nurses, and to explore the relationship between emotional intelligence and perceived stress. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study design together with purposive sampling method was utilized in this study. Self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from 165 newly graduate diploma and Bachelor of Nursing. Data collected were entered and analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21. Result: Based on the result, it showed that a majority number of students were scored between 20 and 40 which indicate high score of stress level. The minority of the student were scored between 0 and 19 which indicate low score of stress level. The total respondents who were high score of stress level, N=91, 55.1%. The total respondent who were in low score of stress level, N=74, 44.9%. The higher the score of the stress perceived scale, the higher of the stress that the respondent experienced. Therefore, most of the respondents were in high perceived stress. The minimum score of emotional intelligence of the respondent is 12 and the maximum score of the emotional intelligence scale of the respondent is 26. Therefore, there was higher emotional intelligence which results in lower of the stress level. Conclusion: This study had confirmed that emotional intelligence is inversely proportional to the stress among the newly graduated nurses. In this study showed that, newly graduated nurses of UiTM Puncak Alam had high level emotional intelligence but there was no statistically significant difference in EI between males and females. The result showed that relationship between emotional intelligence and academic level of newly graduated nurses was moderate and statistically significant but no statistically significant difference in perceived stress between single and married in newly graduated nurses.