A Quantitative Comparison Study on Patient Perceptions of Their Nurses and Physicians’ Emotional Intelligence and Quality of Care Practices

This study explored patients’ perceptions of nurses and physicians’ emotional intelligence (EI) and their patient quality of care practices. By understanding EI and the role it plays in nurses and physicians interactions with patients, specialized training, and other initiatives can be developed to help improve the quality of patient care provided. This was a quantitative comparison study and used a survey questionnaires developed from the TEIQUE-SF and HCAHPS surveys to gage patients’ perceptions. The instrument used to analyze patient perceptions consisted of five patient descriptive categories. Of the five descriptive categories presented, only three were used. These three patient characteristic categories were used to determine if patients viewed their nurses and doctors’ EI differently. The study found patients saw their physicians as being more emotionally intelligent than their nurses. The group with the greatest variance when answering the survey was the 75 and older group. This group rated their nurses at a 3.05, but perceived their physicians to have a 3.23 EI rating. Patients in the 45 to 54 and 65 to 74 groups perceived their nurses to be more emotionally intelligent. Even though participants perceived their physicians as being more emotionally intelligent than their nurses, no significant difference existed between nurses and physicians’ EI when all groups were tested using a .05 level of significance.