NURSES’ EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, BEHAVIOR AND THE MEDIATING ROLE OF JOB STRESS IN LEBANON

The aim of this paper is to examine the influence of emotional intelligence, namely self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and management’s relationship on the nurse’s behavior within the Lebanese context. It specifically examines the indirect effect of the nurses’ EI and its sub skills on behavior, exit, voice, loyalty, neglect, through the mediating role of job stress. A total sample of subjects consisted of 365 registered nurses actively working in the Lebanese hospitals during the COVID 19 period. Mediation was tested using Baron and Kenny (1986)’s framework. The findings demonstrate that the EI elements (Self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and management’s relationship) had a significant positive effect on nurses’ behavior. Another finding revealed the negative effect of emotional intelligence with the subskills, namely SA, SM, SoA, and SK, on job stress. In particular, SM was the most important factor in decreasing stress. Moreover, SM had a greater negative influence on job stress than SA did, followed RR and the least one is the SoA. In addition, the results proved the existence of the negative partial mediation of job stress among the four skills of emotional intelligence and behavior. This result highlights the importance of skills like emotional intelligence to maintain the good behavior of the nurses