Emotional intelligence, employee engagement and employee performance of nurses in the cape coast teaching hospital

Abstract

The study examined the role of work engagement in the relationship between emotional intelligence and nurses’ performance in the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital, Ghana. The objectives were, to: examine the influence of emotional intelligence on nurses’ job performance; analyse the influence of emotional intelligence on work engagement; analyse the influence of work engagement on nurses’ performance; and assess the mediating role of work engagement in the relationship between emotional intelligence and nurses’ performance. The study adopted the quantitative approach and correlational research design. A structured questionnaire was used to gather data from a sample of 240 nurses in the hospital with the aid of simple random sampling technique. The data were then processed using the IBM SPSS Statistics (version 26) and analysed using partial least square structural equation modeling SMARTPLS version 4. The study found that emotional intelligence has a significant positive influence on nurses’ performance and employee engagement. The study also found that employee engagement has a significant positive influence on nurses’ performance at the hospital. The findings further showed that nurses engagement mediates the relationship between emotional intelligence and performance. The study recommended that management of the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital and other healthcare stakeholder such as the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service should emphasise developing emotional intelligence traits among nurses to run public hospitals. This can be done through seminars, conferences, curriculum, meetings, and training workshops towards improving emotional intelligence traits.