Nursing students perceived stress and academic achievement: The role of emotional intelligence

Stressors facing nursing students has adverse consequences on their academic and professional as well it may lead to attrition from nursing programs, and shortage of nurses. Emotional intelligence (EI) is set of abilities enables a person to generate, recognize, express, understand, and evaluate their own, and others, emotions. The current study aims at determining nursing students’ emotional intelligence and its relationship with students’ perceived stress level and their academic achievement. Descriptive corelational cross-sectional design was used to survey 118 nursing students (63 Stream I and 55 Stream II). Students were moderately stressed, with EI level significantly correlated with their perceived stress score (r = -0.30, p = 0.001) and their GPA (r=.308, P=. 005). Emotional intelligence may contribute to the identification and implementation of appropriate interventions and strategies to help nursing students develop optimal personal and professional personality that enable them to deal effectively with stressors and consequently improve their academic achievement.