Journal of Fasa University of Medical Sciences | Winter 2019 | Vol. 9 | No. 4 Dabestan M, at al Original Article Emotional Intelligence and Its Relationship with Job Performance in Health Care Providers and Health Workers at Larestan University of Medical Sciences in Southern Iran, 2018 Dabestan M1 , Jafarnezhad A2, Kashfi M3, Rakhshani T3, Gorgi Z4, Dehghan A5* 1. Department of Environmental Health, Larestan University of Medical Sciences, Larestan, Iran 2. Department of Epidemiology, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, Iran 3. Research Center for Health Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Shiraz, Iran 4. Department of Epidemiology, Larestan University of Medical Sciences, Larestan, Iran 5. Noncommunicable Diseases Research Center, Fasa University of Medical Sciences, Fasa, Iran Received: 12 Oct 2019 Accepted: 22 Dec 2019 Abstract Background & Objective: The present study aimed to determine the level of emotional intelligence and its relationship with job performance in health care providers and health workers of Larestan School of Medical Sciences in 2018. Materials & Methods: This was a cross-sectional study. The Shring questionnaire was used to determine the level of emotional intelligence and its relationship with job performance in health care providers and health workers. Data were analyzed by using SPSS 22 and by Pearson correlation coefficient, one-way ANOVA, Independent Sample T-Test. The significance level was considered 0.05 in all tests. Results: There was a significant relationship between all dimensions of emotional intelligence and performance. Only the self-awareness component directly explained the performance of managers. Conclusions: It is recommended that specific educational programs be implemented in any institute and organization to increase the emotional intelligence of the staff. Keywords: Emotional, Intelligence, Job performance, health worker, Self-motivation. Introduction Over the past few decades, the concept of psychological factor in predicting the staff’s emotional intelligence has increasingly been behavior (2). Salovey and Mayer defined introduced in the theoretical and research work emotional intelligence as a subset of social of psychology as a structure related to multiple intelligence, including the ability to control the human behaviors in different environments(1). feelings and emotions of oneself and others, The concept of emotional intelligence was first distinguish between them and use this introduced by Salovey and Mayer in 1990. information to guide the actions and thoughts of Following that, emotional intelligence was individuals. This may be the most accepted increasingly taken into consideration by practical definition of emotional intelligence (3). industrial and organizational psychologists as a Emotional intelligence is a set of verbal and nonverbal abilities that enable an individual to *Corresponding Author: Dehghan Azizallah, noncommunicable Diseases Research Center, Fasa University of Medical Sciences, identify, understand and evaluate the emotions Fasa, Iran. oneself and those of others to cope with social Email: [email protected] demands and pressures, and use them to guide https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7345-0796 journal.fums.ac.ir 1727 Journal of Fasa University of Medical Sciences | Winter 2019 | Vol. 9 | No. 4 Dabestan M.et al. the thoughts and actions of others (4). Emotional Emotional Intelligence which is also one way of intelligence can be defined as the ability of coping with this type of stress. Emotional individuals to understand and manage their Intelligence is now considered by scholars more emotions and also the ability of individuals to than ever. recognize what others are experiencing Emotional intelligence is the most important emotionally, to guide their thoughts and actions. factor for predicting individuals’ performance in Goleman divided the elements of emotional the workplace and the strongest force for intelligence into two categories, including leadership and success. The theory of emotional personal and social elements. The former include intelligence provides a new perspective on the self-awareness, self-regulation, and self- prediction of the factors affecting success and the motivation, and the latter include empathy and primary prevention of mental disorders. social skills. Self-awareness means to be Cognitive intelligence or general intelligence conscious of one’s mental state and think about causes 20% of successes, in the best conditions, that state, and self-control means to regulate and 80% of successes depend on other factors, personal emotions (5). In many studies, and the fate of people in many situations depends emotional intelligence has also been known as on the skills that make emotional intelligence one of the most important and powerful factors (10). influencing educational adaptability. Personal performance refers to the success Regarding the research carried out on the role history of an individual or can be considered as and importance of emotional intelligence in the obtained results. But job performance various aspects of life such as education, social includes the activities related to the environment, and mental health (6), it has been organization's goals, which can be measured in suggested that individuals with emotional any individual's specialized terminology. In abilities can better face with the challenges of other words, job performance means the life, manage the emotions more effectively, and knowledge and ability to perform certain tasks have better mental health and social and requires experience in the application of relationships. specific techniques and tools, and practical It has also been claimed in psychological texts competence in behavior and actions (11). Since that emotional intelligence helps individuals the health system in any country plays an succeed in leadership, decision-making, sales, important role in the health of the community and even debt recovery (7). The most important and, consequently, the development of that goal of any organization is to achieve the highest country (12), and as no care system can survive possible level of productivity, i.e. optimal without efficient workforce (13), investment on efficiency. Effective factors on productivity the abilities of the employees might lead to a include capital, tools, working methods, and great cycle of better employee engagement, more human resources. Undoubtedly, skilled and appropriate medical and health care, and efficient human resources are one of the most promotion of work norms (14). important tools for achieving organizational In the study by Brundin et al., entitled goals, since human resources play an important Managers’ Emotional Displays and Employees’ role in increasing and decreasing productivity. It Willingness to Act Entrepreneurially, it was means that if an organization enjoys the highest found that managers with high emotional amount of capital and the best technology and intelligence played an important role in facilities, but lacks productive and motivated employees’ performance (15). In the study personnel, it will not achieve its goal (8). conducted by Salimi et al., entitled Explaining Stress is a natural and inevitable reality in every the Role of Emotional Intelligence through person's life, which is caused by various factors Organizational Learning Mediation for such as occupation, family, or the external Prediction of Job Performance of School environment. One of the most important causes Principals, it was found that low emotional of stress in life is occupation. Ivancevich et al. intelligence led to lack of efficiency, weakness in described occupational stress as individuals’ judgments, wrong decision making, planned responses to a group of threats in the inappropriate employee recruitment, loss of workplace, which are called stress factors (9). efficient staff, employees’ lack of motivation, One of the variables that are related to lack of teamwork, and lack of self-management. occupational stress management factors is Instead, people with high emotional intelligence journal.fums.ac.ir 1728 Journal of Fasa University of Medical Sciences | Winter 2019 | Vol. 9 | No. 4 Dabestan M, at al would cause increased efficiency, correct measurement criterion in this questionnaire was judgments, smart decision making, recruitment a Likert scale (always, often, sometimes, rarely, and retention of worthy people, motivation in and never). The reliability of the Shring others, strong teamwork, and self-management questionnaire was calculated by Reisi et al., (16). In their study, Moradi et al. examined "The using Cronbach's alpha. The Cronbach's alpha Role of Emotional Intelligence and Emotional for the dimensions of the questionnaire was Work on Reducing job Burnout and Increasing reported to be 50% to 64%, and the internal Job Satisfaction" and noticed that paying consistency coefficient of the entire test was 84% attention to employees' emotions in the (18). organization could have positive outcomes such Besides, to evaluate the personnel’s as satisfaction and performance and prevent performance, Paterson Job Performance negative consequences such as job burnout. (17) Questionnaire containing 16 items was used. The Although many studies had been done on measurement criterion in this questionnaire was emotional intelligence, the relationship between the Likert scale (always, often, sometimes, emotional intelligence and its dimensions and the rarely, and never). The questionnaires