Relationship of Emotional Intelligence and Conflict Management Styles among Nurses in Pakistan

Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, express, understand, and manage emotions. It is an essential factor that may measure individual’s performance in their professional lives beyond their daily lives, increase or decrease their success, contribute to the measurement of managerial qualities, and improve organizational communication and interaction. In healthcare organizations, conflict management is crucial because incapable conflict management causes undesirable working conditions, control recreations, constant disappointment, a rebate inside the quality of care, and a rise in healthcare costs. The present study aimed to identify the role of emotional intelligence on conflict management styles among nurses. The sample consisted of 400 nurses, and the model was taken from four public and four private hospitals located in Multan City. A purposive sampling technique was used to collect the data, and the age range was between 25 to 45 years. Two research instruments were used to collect the data. The emotional intelligence scale developed by Schutte et al. (2018) was used and consisted of 33 items. The interpersonal conflict inventory developed by Rahim (1983) was used and consisted of 28 items. This study showed the relationship between emotional intelligence and conflict management styles; integration, obliging, dominating, and compromising are positively correlated with the score of emotional intelligence, and avoiding was negatively correlated with emotional intelligence. The results further showed a significant difference in age in emotional intelligence among nurses, and there is also a significant difference in age in conflict management styles among nurses. Moreover, the results revealed a significant difference in emotional intelligence and conflict management styles among the nurses of public and private hospitals. Emotional intelligence is positively and significantly correlated with conflict management styles. Thus, an analysis of the relationship between emotional intelligence and conflict management styles can assist management in initiating a tailor-training program to improve their abilities to manage conflict among the nurses and the administrative healthcare staff of both public and private hospitals.