The mediating effect of job satisfaction between emotional intelligence and organisational commitment of nurses: a questionnaire survey

Background The effect of emotional intelligence and its dimensions on job satisfaction and organisational commitment of nurses has been investigated in this study. Objectives This paper examines the relations among emotional intelligence, job satisfaction and organisational commitment of nurses and the mediating effect of job satisfaction between emotional intelligence and organisational commitment. Design A questionnaire survey was carried out to explore the relations between emotional intelligence, job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Setting Teaching hospital in Ankara, Turkey. Participants Questionnaires were distributed by Nursing Services Administration to 550 nurses working at different departments of the hospital and 267 questionnaires were analyzed. Methods A 45-item questionnaire which consists of emotional intelligence, job satisfaction and organisational commitment parts was carried out to investigate the relations among these variables. Some basic socio-demographic questions were included. Results Emotional intelligence was significantly and positively related to job satisfaction \( r = 0.236 , p ≤ 0.01 \) and organisational commitment \( r = 0.229 , p ≤ 0.01 \) . The positive relation between job satisfaction and organisational commitment was also significant \( r = 0.667 , p ≤ 0.01 \) . Job satisfaction was found to be related with "regulation of emotion (ROE)" \( r = 0.228 , p ≤ 0.01 \) and "use of emotion (UOE)" \( r = 0.155 , p ≤ 0.01 \) but not with other dimensions of emotional intelligence. "Others's emotional appraisal" did not have any relations with job satisfaction or organisational commitment and "self-emotional appraisal (SEA)" was found to be a suppressor. Conclusion It was found that job satisfaction is a mediator between emotional intelligence and organisational commitment. The other finding of the study was that "SEA" and "UOE" have direct effects on organisational commitment whereas job satisfaction is a mediator between "regulation of emotion" and organisational commitment.