Inteligencia emocional de los estudiantes de pregrado de las licenciaturas de enfermería.

Introduction: Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the ability to perceive, assimilate and regulate one's own emotions, as well as to know how to act when there is a problem affecting the relationship of students, interns or nurses with patients. Objective: To identify EI levels in undergraduate nursing students in 2017. Materials and Methods: A descriptive quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted with 90 undergraduate nursing students in Mexico City. Six scales were applied (EIS-25, GHQ-12, PANAS, EES, MBI-SS and UWES-S). Pearson's chi-squared test and Fisher's exact test were also applied. Results: 13.3%(12) have adequate levels of EI, from which 100%(12) are satisfied with their studies, compared to 60.25%(47) in those with lower EI (p=0.007). Age, academic term, gender, class hours and degree reported a p-value of >0.203. Discussion: Similar results were obtained to those of the University of Veracruz, Mexico which revealed that a lower EI has an effect on health and alterations in emotional well-being. The study found out that nursing education has traditionally focused on skills, competencies, aptitudes and intellectual measurement rather than EI. Conclusions: EI in undergraduate nursing students has high emotional demands so authorities should make efforts to implement study programs that include strategies promoting EI development more than just intellectual development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]