Specificity of Surviving Stress Among Physicians and Nurses Working In Intensive Care Units Using Emotional Intelligence Items Training As a Management Stress Tool Iran & Armenia

Introduction: Today, anxiety is one of the most common problems of mankind, to the extent that we could claim that it predisposes human to many physical illnesses, mental disorders, behavioral disturbances and inappropriate reactions. Intensive care unit is one of the stressful environments for its staff, especially physicians and nurses. These stresses may have negative effects on the mental health and performance of the nurses and physicians. But the complications caused by it can be prevented by training emotional intelligence components. In this study, the impact of training emotional intelligence components on stress and anxiety in nurses and special physicians is examined. Methodology: This research is an intervention case-control study conducted in Yerevan city and Yasuj city in 2010. Sample admission requirements include the lack of any severe depression disease and anxiety disorders as well as working experience of more than 2 years in intensive care units and sample exclusion requirements include having acute mental or physical disease and performing other educational or therapeutic programs to promote emotional intelligence level. After investigation of the desired conditions (inclination to participate in educational programs), 150 individuals, consist of 120 nurses and 30 physicians, participated in this study. 60 nurses and 15 specialists were selected from Beheshti Hospital and Emam Sajad hospitals in Yasuj for case group and 60 nurses and 15 specialists were selected from Shahid Rajae Gachsaran and Emam khomenie Dehdasht for the control group. After investigation of the desired conditions (inclination to participate in educational programs), 106 individuals, 76 nurses and 30 physicians, participated in Yerevan. Thirty eight nurses and 15 specialists were selected from Kanaker and Zeyton hospitals for case group and 38 nurses and 15 specialists were selected from Markarian and Erboni hospitals for the control group. Both groups participated in pretest before the training program. For data collection, 20-question Berger situational anxiety (overt) questionnaire, Berger personality anxiety (covert) questionnaire and Bar-on emotional intelligence questionnaire with 133 questions have been used. Results: Result in Iran: Research results indicate that average score for the situational anxiety of the case group has been 45.22 before the intervention and it is reduced to 40.47 after implementation of training components of emotional intelligence which indicates the impact of training of emotional intelligence components on reduction of situational anxiety- average score of situational anxiety of case group has been 46.77 before the intervention and it has been increased to 47.05 during posttest. However, t-test has not confirmed statistically significant difference between the average score of situational anxiety of both case and control groups before the intervention (p=0.314), there was statistically significant difference between the average score of both case and control groups after training components of emotional intelligence (p=0.0001).Result in Armenia: A sample of 106 participants (18.7% of men and 31.3% of women in case and control group), representing various human service professions (physicians, nurses) was eligible for the study. The mean age of the participants was 33.19 years in case group (SD = 6.44), and 31.6 in control group (SD = 6.04), and the employment period was 8.2 years (SD = 7.34) in case group and 5.57 years (SD = 4.02) in control group. T- Test does not approve the meaningful difference between the mean scores of participants in control and case group before emotional intelligence items education (p =0.064), after emotional intelligence items education the difference of mean scores in case and control group were significant (p = 0.001). The results confirmed an essential, very strong, role of emotional intelligence in perceiving occupational stress and preventing physicians and nurses from negative health outcomes. Conclusion: The results of the study showed that human service workers experience high level of stress (in nurses was higher).Stress and crises are inevitable in every one’s life. Human beings experience stress early, even before they are born. A certain amount of stress is normal and necessary for survival .Training emotional intelligence components reduces situational anxiety of nurses and physicians working in intensive care units, in a way that emotional intelligence score in these individuals are increased and situational anxiety score are significantly reduced. Acknowledgements I would especially like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Dr. Khachatur Gasparyan, for his patience, encouragement and guidance; and. Dr. Farkhonde Sharif and Dr. Mohamad Zoladl that guided me at all stages from the approval to implementing the plan to enhance our research. To my family and friends, thank you for your support over these many years. Special thanks, as well, to all the all physicians and nurses in Iran and Armenia participated in the study.