Predicting the Impact of Emotional Intelligence on Communication Skills among Community Health Care Workers in Kurdistan Province

Evidence shows that a high level of emotional intelligence in health care workers leads to better communication with patients and, ultimately, the pateints’ satisfaction. Considering the undeniable and complex relationship between emotional intelligence and communication skills, the present research was designed and implemented.

The current research is a descriptive-analytical study. The participants included 121 community health workers from Kurdistan Province, Iran. The required data was collected through a communication skills checklist by observation, Queen Dam's communication skills questionnaire, and Shering's Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and linear regression were performed using SPSS (version 21) software.

The results of self-declaration of emotional intelligence and communication skills showed that only 28% of the participants had high emotional intelligence, and 32.2% had high communication skills. The evaluation of communication skills through the observation method showed that the staff obtained a low score with respect to introducing themselves to patients, explaining the treatment process, and keeping the patients calm. Moreover, 40.7% of participants had active listening skills. The r-squared (the coefficient of determination) showed that 86% of the variance of emotional intelligence is related to the variable of communication skills.

Overall, the findings of the present study revealed an average level of emotional intelligence and communication skills among health care workers. Concerning the communication weaknesses observed in the emotional dimensions, it is recommended to intervene appropriately.