Nurses in emotional competence: exploratory study on population of continued care national network

The relevance of this study - the first empirical research (to our knowledge) in Continued Care National Network (RCNN) context - emerge to understand the role of emotions in workplace behaviour (Côté, 2005; Austin, Dore & Donovan, 2008; Liu et al. 2008; Barsade, Ramarajan, Burack, 2008), but here, with terminally ill people and great physical and psychological weakness. Recent scientific literature is exposing a significatly negative correlations between Emotional Intelligence (EI) and emotional exhaution; and significantly positive correlations between EI and occupational identity (Geng; Li; Zhou, 2011), and the development of emotional competence (EC) skills in workplace context (Veiga-Branco, 2007, 2010, 2011). Authors agree with the relationship between emotional responses, therapeutic relationship and perception of job satisfaction (Li, 2004; Hart & Walton, 2010; Karim & Weiz, 2010). Keywords: emotional inteligence, emotional competence profile, nurses Aim: to know, the capacities levels in the Emotional Competence (EC) profile in a nurses sample of RNCC, and study the five capacities as predictive variables, in the their Emotional Competence’s (EC) profile. Method:A cross-sectional survey was carried out in a probabilistic sample including 154 nurses in RNCC, about 22 % male and 78% female, and aged between 26 and 30 years old. The instrument applied was “Escala Veiga de Competência Emocional” (EVCE), developed by Veiga-Branco (2009), with 84 itens, in temporal Lickert scale, from Never (1) to Always (7). Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Factor analysis was used to identify capacities. Additionally, a multiple regression analysis was conducted to determine the relationship between capacities and EC and to establish the capacities that were the strongest predictors of EC. Conclusions/Results : 1. Five competencies were identified in this study. The ranking of the correlations was as follows: Empathy (r=0.783; p<0.01), Emotions Management in Group (r=0.724; p<0.01), Emotions Management (r=0.760; p<0.01), Self-motivation (r=0.693;p<0.01), and Self-conscience (r=0.678; p