EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN RELATION TO DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS IN LITHUANIAN CLINICAL NURSES: A PILOT STUDY

Abstract

The World Health Organisation's European Work Programme 2020-2025 identifies mental health as a key element of personal and collective well-being. In Lithuania, the importance of emotional literacy education is not sufficiently focused on, so the aim of this study was to identify and assess the relationship between emotional intelligence and depression symptomatology in nurses working in personal health care institutions in the Republic of Lithuania. 

The results of the study showed that almost one in five nurses in the healthcare sector has an insufficient level of emotional intelligence. The higher-risk group of nurses with low levels of emotional intelligence is exclusively represented by nurses working in primary health care settings. Higher depressive symptomatology among nurses working in Lithuanian healthcare institutions is associated with insufficiently developed emotional literacy, which is uniquely determined by the nursing staff's insufficient ability to manage individual emotions (r = -0.3, p = 0.007). Health care institutions in Lithuania need to protect and enhance the mental health of nurses and reduce depressive symptomatology, so the recommendations of this study should focus on the consistent rationalisation and optimisation of existing prevention programmes by integrating an emotional literacy component.