Emotional and Social Intelligence in Nursing: A Reflective Report

This report delves into the crucial role of emotional and social intelligence in the nursing profession. It highlights the challenges nurses face, emphasizing the need for empathy, self-awareness, and the ability to manage stressful situations. The report presents a real-life incident where a nurse's lack of emotional intelligence led to an unethical interaction with a patient, and the subsequent impact of this experience. It explores factors affecting nurses' attitudes, such as workload and personal stress, and discusses the importance of maintaining a positive attitude, practicing self-possession, and fostering gratitude. The report also examines the benefits of journaling and proactive approaches in developing emotional and social intelligence, ultimately concluding that these qualities are essential for providing effective and compassionate patient care.

EMOTIONAL
AND SOCIAL
INTELLIGENCE IN
NURSING

NURSING
■ The profession of nursing means to give effective care to
the patient which require emotional and social
intelligence.
■ It is the challenging job, where nurse tends to lose
patience, because they are involve in care of the physical
and mental ill patient (Woodworth, 2016).
■ They have to undergo tough situation where they can
negatively react to the patient.
■ However, they are required to control their personal
emotion health care sector.

EMOTIONAL AND SOCIAL
INTELLIGENCE
■ It is the ability of the nurse to aware of the feeling of the
patient as well as their own.
■ It relates with emotion and empathy showed by the nurse.
■ Emotional intelligence led the nurse to identify and
understand the reason for anger and other behavior (Van
Deursen et al., 2015).
■ It give nurse new way and method to handle stressful
situation.

REAL LIFE INCIDENT
■ It can happen in life of nurse that they undergo stressful
situation.
■ It happen with me when I was assigned to re-plaster the
fracture of a patient, a day before Christmas.
■ I was in huge rush, and felt frustrated and disturbed even
though I agreed to provide assistance.
■ I did not greeted to the patient when I entered into the room.
■ I abruptly initiated the process.

REAL LIFE INCIDENT-
CONTINUE■ The Patient asked me a glass of water, but I did not paid
any attention as because I was frustrated.
■ As I was huge rush, I forgot the bandage and cream in the
bed of the patient.
■ I treated the patient unethically and felt remorse as I have
performed against my duty.

FEELINGS
■ On the day of Christmas, I realized my mistake and shortcomings in
my profession.
■ I felt remorse that I behaved badly to the patient.
■ I was angry for my action.
■ I should have taken the incident positively and worked with sense of
responsibility.
■ According to HASAnPour-DeHKorD and SolAti (2016), nurse crucial
duty rely on the behavior and attitude.
■ I felt that it was not justified, that I showed frustrating behavior to the
patient.

INFLUENCE
■ I felt that the way I have behaved to the patient, might have cause
huge pain and discomfort for the patient.
■ It is the work of the nurse to execute their duty in humble way that a
patient forget the pain.
■ I disrespected the patient and forget the bandage and cream in the
bed of the patient which was unethical behavior.
■ The incident has greatly influenced me toward my work and
responsibility.
■ Unempathetic behavior has portrayed a negative side work, where I
learned about emotional and social intelligence.

EMOTIONAL AND SOCIAL
INTELLIGENCE
According to international journal of nursing studies, there are
several factor which affects the attitude of nurse:
■ The work load of the nurse
■ Early schedule of work
■ Overtime
■ Unplanned activities
■ Lack of encouragement by the administration
■ Personal stress (Sharma, Dhar & Tyagi, 2016).

BEHAVIOR AND ATTITUDE OF
NURSE IN WORK
■ Nurse need to be clam and relax.
■ Nurse should adopt positive attitude while working.
■ As per the article of nurse advisor magazine (nurse advisor,
2019) a healthy attitude helps the nurse to face the health
care challenges.
■ Self possession in also needed in the working of nurse. It allow
time for them to correct their response towards patient.
■ Patient are not liable for the nurse’s frustration and anger.
■ I should have not showed my anger to the patient because of
workload.

NURSE’ PERSPECTIVE
■ Nurse think that they should be praised for their hard
working and dedication. Failing in such create a sense of
disinterest in continuing their duty.
■ As per the experience, I thought, I should have
communicated to the head about nit receiving incentive
last month.
■ According to the Hamdy et al. (2019) it is significant for
the nurse escalate their query, as it may be a hurdle in
their nurse and cannot perform in the way they need to.
■ It is important to maintain sense of gratitude as because it
motivate the nurse to work with full efficiency (Sharma,
2003).

RESPONSE TAKEN BY THE
ADMINISTRATION
■ Howells et al. (2017) has highlighted the importance of
maintaining gratitude journal where nurse can write down
about their negative and positive feeling.
■ Administration should take a step to it as, it is the gateway
to productivity.
■ Further, administration should take response to
understand the nurse’s obligation.
■ It will create a sense of intellectual that they are also been
cared and given security for their job.

TRANSFORMATION OF REAL
LIFE■ From the experience of my life incident, I have analyzed
that healthy practice is significant for the nurse for
performing their accountability.
■ The application of the practice and positive attitude can
bring real transformation in profession of nursing.
■ It help in dealing the tough situation in pro-active way
rather than reacting on the instincts.