Emotional and Spiritual intelligence and their coping ability among the nursing students in selected settings in Kerala

 

Smitha J Thundiparampil¹, Ratnachhaya Singh², Christy JT³

¹Research Scholar, Department of Nursing, Mansarovar Global University, Bhopal, India.

²Guide, Dean, Faculty of Nursing Sciences, Mansarovar Global University, Bhopal, India

³Co guide, Chief Medical Officer, District Hospital Idukki, Kerala.

 

ABSTRACT:

Nursing course is a crucial period where the students need both physical and mentally support to cope up this dynamic transitional period of new independence from their parents. The nursing students have to encounter many problems to make successful adaptation during the life of stress. They cope up the changes in this period of transition in a healthy manner and if not can become a burden to them and put them into risk of negative health behaviors with tendency to be carry into their adulthood. Emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence together with coping ability are seen to promote better health behavior. A quantitative descriptive study was conducted among 120 undergraduate nursing students who study in two different institutes were chosen through convenient sampling technique. Descriptive and inferential statics like independent t test was used to compare the levels of the Emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence, coping ability of the nursing students of two institutes in Kannur. It is interpreted that spiritual intelligence can boost positive health behavior and it is associated with emotional intelligence and coping ability and have an important implication for both health practice and policy especially in nursing education institutions. This electronic document on emotional and spiritual intelligence of the nursing students in coping their life transitions was carried out with a view to promote healthy coping style in their professional and personal life by assessing and comparing the levels of emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence and coping ability of nursing students in Kannur District.This study also emphasized the need for adopting emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence in maintaining their resiliency throughout their life. Out of the 120 sample, majority of the sample both group one and two 56.66 % in first and 48.33 % in the second group had low levels of Emotional Intelligence, 51.66 % of the first group possess low level of spiritual intelligence whereas the 70% of the second group possess low levels of spiritual intelligence and both the two groups majority (90.66%) of the first group and 85% of the second group have low levels of resiliency or coping ability. Similarly, 73% of the first group and 70% of the second group have low resilience problem based coping ability. In case of emotional based coping ability majority of the first group (71.66%) were medium level of Resilient where as 61.66% of the sample of the second group have low level of resiliency.    

 

1. INTRODUCTION:

Today’s adolescents and young adults are facing more challenges and opportunities in this era of Google world. It is estimated that there are almost 200 million adolescents in India (age group of 15-24). It is expected that this age group will continue to grow at 223 million in 2025 and will decrease slowly. In the eventuality of increasingly problematic adolescence, the community should step to help children handle stress better. Since BSc Nursing students belongs to this group it is very essential to improve their well-being in a healthy way. Their course period is a crucial time where they need both physically and mentally support in this period of new independence from their parents. They have to encounter many problems to make successful adaptation to life stress. (Sridevi TS, Drisya G, (2021)²⁰. This dynamic transitional period is characterized by many factors like social, financial, and environment etc. and is influenced by peer groups and media with changes in perceptions and practice characterized by changes in the emotional and spiritual intelligence. They have to develop themselves on components of emotional intelligence which help them in reducing their frustrations and dilemmas and help them in improving their mental health, understanding others, and improving relationship building (Kumar A, 2021)¹¹. Emotional intelligence is an ability to understand the meanings of emotion, their relationships and to solve problems on the basis of it. People are aware of their own emotions and it helps them to manage an individual's emotions, to regulate their nature, intensity and expression and in order to have a successful personal relationship (Deepak A, Krishnamoorthy K. 2016)⁶. Emotional intelligence allows to judge the situation in which one person is involved and help to behave appropriately within it. Emotional Intelligence is the knowledge of oneself and others, how do they interact with others and adjustment their environment and realize the social demands (Gorji A. H, Darabinia M, Ranjbar M (2017)⁷. Spirituality is an important aspect of holistic careand the necessary changes should be made in the nursing  curriculum in order to equip the nurses to meet the holistic aspect of health care (Joseph J et al.2021)^8.

 

Spiritual intelligence allows one to analyse that whether want to be in this particular situation in the first place or not and has a significant influence on the quality of life. Emotional intelligence is a developing ability and the life experiences contribute for the improvement of this ability (Das RP, Sahu TL, 2014)³. EmotionalIntelligence people have been found to be more perceptive to their own emotions and emotional self-understanding and they are capable to recognize their own feelings. It was suggested that to instill security, trust and satisfaction amongst themselves and friends so it is necessary for the nursing students to maintain a positive appearance by displaying emotional intelligence traits (Sood I, Kaushal SL. 2018)¹⁹. Nursing College students, especially freshmen are particularly prone to stress due to the transitional nature of college life. They move away from home for the first time, leaving previously learned support systems such as parents, siblings and high school friends. They need to develop entirely new social contacts and are expected to take responsibility for their own deeds. They may have difficulty in adjusting to more rigorous academic expectations and the need to learn to deal with individuals of differing cultures and beliefs. To develop into an effectively functioning citizen of our democratic society, she needs to have a well-integrated personality by adopting relaxation techniques used in order to cope with stress(Kuruvilla J, Menezes PM 2019, Michael C,2017)^13,15. Adolescents and young adult in 21st century need to be understood about the emotional and spiritual intelligence as the capacity of a person to understand themselves and to act with wisdom and compassion in order to maintain their inner and outer peace, regardless of the circumstances.  Coping is the changing process in accordance with the change in cognitive and behavioral ability to control certain external or internal situations works against the will, interest and the individual perspectives related to a time. Applications of coping ability depend on the state of health and nature of the people with style as problem focused, emotion focused, active, adaptive, avoidant, problem solving, corrective or preventive. The findings discussed in this article were original to the existing knowledge and no such studies had attempted in these selected variables among the nursing students in a proactive way to enable the nursing policy makers, nurse educators and nurse practitioners to take an appropriate decision to improve their emotional, spiritual intelligence and their coping ability.

 

OBJECTIVES:

·       Assess the levels of emotional intelligence of the nursing students of selected institutes.

·       Assess the spiritual intelligence of the nursing students of selected institutes.

·       Assess the coping status of the nursing students of selected institutes.

·       Compare the levels of the emotional intelligence, the spiritual intelligence and the coping status of the nursing students of selected institutes.

 

NEED FOR THE STUDY:

Nursing students’ need both physical and mental support in their period of study full of dynamic transitional from their adolescence to period of new independence from their parents. They need to cope up these changes in a healthy manner by maintaining spiritual and emotional health along with physical health. Spiritual and emotional intelligence can be developed through meditation and yoga and through proper guidance and counselling. To develop this healthy behavior, they need to empower with Emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence to improve their coping ability. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to assess the levels of emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence and coping ability of nursing students in Kannur to take a prompt step during their course period.

 

REVIEW OF LITERATURE:

a.     Emotional Intelligence:

Shemesh DO. (2017)¹⁸ conducted a study to examine the relationships between emotional intelligence (EI) and adaptive coping with stressful encounters among 203 adolescents aged between 16-17 years and assess the extent to which EI uniquely facilitates adaptive coping beyond the general intelligence effects of personality. Overall, the results revealed that the High Emotional intelligence and positive adaptive outcomes were highly correlated and Emotional intelligence was negatively correlated with avoidant coping strategies that entail non-adaptive behaviour and modest positive correlations were found between Emotional intelligence and scholastic performance. The findings indicated that the adolescents with high Emotional intelligence rely on their higher emotional abilities to build a social network along with significant social resources to minimize the negative impact of stress. Kaur S, Jiwan T.2014⁹ also conducted an exploratory study with non- experimental research design to assess emotional intelligence and performance of 150 nursing students selected using random sampling technique in Ludhyana, Panjab and the major findings of the study revealed that maximum students (62%) were in the age group of 18 – 20 years, and there was weak negative correlation (-0.08) and inverse relationship between emotional intelligence and performance and there was high positive correlation between self- regulation and excellent performance and negative correlation between self- awareness and below average performance. They recommended that EI had some impact on performance and there is need to strengthen emotional intelligence of nursing students. Similarly, Madhavi G, Gopalkrishnan S, Dasila P.2021¹⁴ conducted descriptive study among nursing students to assess their levels of EI and revealed that revealed that among second year Baccalaureate nursing students 42% average and 58% had high emotional competence. The highest emotional competence was observed in love (84%) and 80% students were sad, also 70% students were sympathetic and jealous. They recommended that emotional intelligence training program can improve dimensions of emotional competence and improve the affective domain of students in order to make them healthy emotionally, prosper personally and professionally.

 

b.    Spiritual Intelligence:

Study by Sehga SM, Kanwar M, (2016)¹⁷conducted Inter-correlation analysis among 75 young adults on Spiritual Intelligence in Relation to Character Strengths and Coping Strategies. The variables and multiple regression analysis of character strengths on spiritual intelligence revealed that there were some significant positive results with the coping strategy and Spiritual Intelligence. Another study by Khosravi M, Nikmanesh Z. (2014)¹⁰ investigated the relationship between spiritual intelligence, resilience, and perceived stress by conducting a correlational descriptive study among 307 students of Sistan and Baluchistan University by using clustering methodsampling technique. Spiritual intelligence components used in this study were existential thinking, personal meaning production, transcendental awareness, and conscious state expansion. The results of the study indicated that the spiritual intelligence had a positive association with components of resilience like hopefulness, personal control, coping, and religiosity/spirituality.

 

c.     Coping ability:

Kumar R, 2015¹² stated that Stress in nursing and in nursing students is a well-documented phenomenon and it extent based on how they coping with those situations. A descriptive survey was conducted among 199 nursing students through simple random sampling (lottery method) and revealed that 55.3% Remain upset, 49.2% of them were unable to cope stress’ and feeling that things are going away (48.2%). The most common coping strategies were listening radio or music (47.7%), taking help of rabbi or priest (53.3%), and talking to father about our problems (36.7%). The least common coping styles were use of beer-wine (7.5%), smoking (7%) and use of prescribed drugs (4%). Coping with stress is a dynamic and ongoing process and the use of healthy coping mechanism helped the nursing student’s survival, growth and maintenance of individual personality by using of various coping strategies.

 

d.    Spiritual and Emotional Intelligence:

Cross-sectional study by Gorji AH, et al. (2017)⁷ with an aim to determine the relationship between spiritual and emotional intelligence among Iranian 324medical students selected through stratified random sampling revealed that the mean score of spiritual intelligence was higher among women in comparison with men, whereas the mean score of emotional intelligence was higher among men. There was a significant correlation found between emotional and spiritual intelligence and concluded that the students’ emotional intelligence can be improved by reinforcing their spiritual intelligence and promote their correct behaviours according to their social values. She recommended that it is necessary to develop ability and intelligence of emotion and spiritual to cope with mental peace by which only students can manage their emotions. E.Q., S.Q. and Values can play a major role in managing social adjustments. S.I. can also help adolescents to look with in to know, to understand and the nature of the self and its requirement. E.I. enhances their total outlook so that students will be positive and careful and thereby they will be physically and mentally better and equipped to manage mental balance.

 

2. MATERIALS AND METHODS:

Research Approach:

The research approach used in this study was quantitative and Descriptive Survey method.

 

Settings of the study:

The population is the nursing students staying in the selected nursing educational institutions in Kannur District of Kerala State vary from 1200 to 1600. One Hundred and Twenty students studying in the selected college with confirmed to the inclusion criteria were the sample of the study. The study was approved by the institutional research department committee of the and formal permission was obtained from the concerned institute. The study process was explained to the participants and consent was obtained before the data collection.

 

Tools Used in the Study: 

The tool consists of four sections in which

 

Section A:

Demographic data prepared based on the previous study reviewed.

 

Section B:

The Self-Report Inventory for Spiritual Intelligence developed by King D. in 2008 consists of total 24 items scores range from 0–96. There are four Factors/Subscales in this tool.

Scoring pattern for the Section B was as follows

Very low level:                     < 1

Low level:                             1-24

Medium level:                      24-48

High level:                            48-72

Very High:                            72-96

 

Section C:

EI-quiz (Mind Tools, developed by famous psychologist Daniel Golemanin 2019) scores range from 15 – 75.

 

Scoring pattern for the Section C was as follows

Very low level:                     0-16

Low level:                             16-31

Average level:                      31-46

High level:                            46-61

Very High:                            61-75

 

Section D:

It is on Brief Resilient Coping Scale developed by Sinclaire and Wallston, in 2004 and the scores range from 4-20.

 

Scoring pattern for the Section D: Brief Resilient Coping Scale was as follows

Very low-level copers:                       0-4 points

Low Resilient copers:                         4-13 points

Medium Resilient copers:                 13-16 points  

High Resilient copers:                        17-20 points

 

3: RESULTS OF THE STUDY:

3.1a: The level of emotional intelligence of the Nursing students of selected institutes

Table 1: The level of emotional intelligence of the Nursing students of selected institutes                                                           N = 120

 

 

Table:1 revealed that the majority of the sample of both groups had low levels of Emotional Intelligence (56.66 % in first and 48.33 % in the second group).Majority of the sample (46.66% in the first group and 68.66% have low level of self-awareness and 68.33% of first group and 45% of second group have low level of self- regulations components of Emotional Intelligence. Around 66.66% in the first group and 36.66% of second group have low level of Motivation components of Emotional Intelligence.  Similarly, 50% of the first group and 53.33% of second group have low levels of empathy and 63.33% of the first group and 48.33% of the second group have low level of social relationship skills components of Emotional Intelligence.

 

3.1b: The level of Spiritual intelligence of the Nursing students of selected institutes

Table 2: The level of Spiritual intelligence of the Nursing students of selected institutes                                                            N = 120

 

Majority of the samples (51.66 % of the first group possess low level of spiritual intelligence whereas the 70% of the second group possess low levels of spiritual intelligence. Similarly, 43.33% of the first group possess average level of Critical Existential Thinking (CET) where the same percentage of sample of second group possess only low level of CET. In both group the majority of the samples (50% of first group and 41.66% of the second group have average level of Personal Meaning Production (PMP)components of Spiritual Intelligence. Majority (51.66%) of the first group possess low level of Transcendental Awareness (TA) components of Spiritual Intelligence but in case of second group 53.33 percentage of the sample have low levels of the Transcendental Awareness (TA) components of Spiritual Intelligence. Around46.66% of the first group possess low level of Conscious State Expansion (CSE) components of Spiritual Intelligence where 56.66% of the second group possess only very low levels of the same.

 

3.1c: The level of Coping Ability of the Nursing students of selected institutes:

Table 3: The level of Coping Ability of the Nursing students of selected institutes                                                                     N = 120

 

Table: 3 depicts that majority (90.66%) of the first group and 85% of the second group have low levels of resiliency or coping ability.

 

3. 1 d:Compare the Emotional Intelligence of the students:

Table 4: Comparison of the   Emotional Intelligence of the Nursing students of selected institutes

The independent t value in the table 4 depicts that there were no noticeable changes observed statically significant at 0.05 and 0.01 levels with different levels of EI of the respondent of the both groups.

 

3. 1 e: Compare the Spiritual Intelligence of the students

Table 5: Comparison of the level of Spiritual Intelligence of the Nursing students of selected institutes

 

Table: 5 revealed that the there were no noticeable changes observed statically significant at 0.05 and 0.01 levels with SI in general but significant difference observed at the CET, PMP, TA and CSE components of the SI of the both groups.

 

3. 1 e: Compare the Coping Ability of the students:

Table 6: Comparison of the level of Coping Ability of the Nursing students of selected institutes

 

Table: 6 also depicts that same like Emotional Intelligence there were no noticeable changes observed statically significant at 0.05 and 0.01 levels with different levels of Coping Ability of the respondent of the both groups.

 

4: DISCUSSION:

Srivastava PS. (2016)²¹, RaisiM, et al. (2014)^16, Charkhabi M etal² recommended to open a new horizon in front of teachers and the parents of student to realize the importance of paying attention to the spirituality in the growth of mental health in children as to develop the concept of spiritual intelligence as a new construct in their daily life. They also stated that the adolescents and youth spirituality can be a protective factor at the tender age of adolescence and empower them on spiritual intelligence strengthen their coping mechanisms and emphasized the need for improving the spiritual intelligence in improving the coping ability of the people. Spirituality at work place in that in recent years is a new concept. Spirituality can have a tremendous impact on an individual’s life, such as by creating a better balance of work, family, and life satisfaction(Datta S.2021)⁵ and the tool like 360-degree feedback is a  helps oneself to be more efficient in their current roles by helping them identify their areas for improvement (Das UK, Panda DS.2017)⁴. This study findings too revealed that the majority of the samples (51.66 % of the first group possess low level of spiritual intelligence whereas the 70% of the second group possess low levels of spiritual intelligenceand nursing students are in need of improving theirspiritual intelligence. The findings of the present study as the two groups majority (90.66%)of the first group and 85% of the second group have low levels of resiliency or coping ability also emphasized the need for training nursing students in improving their coping ability. Azizollah (2013)¹ revealed that there was a significant positive relationship between students’ achievement with their emotional and spiritual intelligence and the growth and promotion of the emotional and spiritual intelligence can be considered as the methods for improving students’ academic achievement by promoting a rich educational environment. The spiritual intelligence strengthens spiritual and religious beliefs to establish good qualities and the emotional intelligence improve social relationships, control emotions and help individuals progress towards perfection.All the authors unanimously agree that the people with spiritual behaviors and practices have a greater tendency towards social support, resulting in increased self-esteem, psychological health, and dominance over the environment through faith and belief in God. They recommended based on their findings as the students’ emotional intelligence can be used to correct their behavior in accordance with social values. In this study, it was shown that there was no change in the levels of emotional status with the type of institution and both groups have low levels of emotional intelligence and could improve with training in this important period of their course period.Overall study findings revealed that therewas not much difference among the two groups of nursing students in their levels of Emotional and Coping ability but little but statically significance was observed at the CET and PMP components of SI but there was no noticeable change in the coping ability due to the comparatively increased spiritual intelligence of the students.

 

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Inclusion of emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence and coping ability are the permanent feature that would boost the coping skills of nursing students. The similar study can be duplicated among the other institutes of both nursing and other streams in the different communities of Kannur district and other district or even at the national level to generalize the findings. A comparative study can be carried out on large scale within the nursing students.  The nurse educators should give more emphasis in the preventive services by empowering them and act as a counsellor in helping them to overcome their life stress during their transition period in their college period onwards. Cost effective and cultural oriented empowerment program for on SI, EI and they can be arranged to improve their emotional, spiritual to improve their coping skill especially within this era of pandemic and uncertainty. The nurse administrators must identify the needs of theirs and organize an awareness program in each academic institutes from the time of first year onwards.

 

CONCLUSION:

This study was conducted to assess the level of Emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence, coping ability of the nursing students. Spiritually and emotionally intelligent people can feel the sense of self, empathy, kindness, intuition, motivation, awareness, social skills, forgiveness, reconciliation, dedication within themselves. If one person possesses in his or her early adult period with emotional and spiritual intelligence, they could face their life related transitions in a balanced way to certain extent. It is very essential to have a culture-oriented, cost-effective empowerment of nursing students on Emotional and spiritual intelligence in order to cope up with their life transitions especially in the midst of this pandemic.

 

CONFLICT OF INTEREST:

None declared.

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENT:

The authors are grateful to all the participants for their willingness and cooperation during the study period.

 

LIST OF ABBREVIATION:

Emotional intelligence – EI,

Spiritual intelligence – SI

Coping ability- CA

Critical Existential Thinking - CET  

Personal Meaning Production – PMP

Transcendental Awareness – TA

Conscious State Expansion - CSE 

self-awareness- SA

Self – Regulation- SR

Motivations- M

Empathy- E

Social skills- SS

Problem Based Coping Ability – PBCA and Emotion Based Coping Ability- EBCA

 

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Received on 15.01.2022           Modified on 24.06.2022

Accepted on 19.11.2022          © A&V Publications all right reserved