Effects of critical care nurses’ emotional intelligence on patient safety at King Fahad Hospital in Jazan province

Abstract

Objective:

Emotional intelligence plays an essential role in working nurses towards communication, decision-making on critical issues in high-stress environments, and collaborating with colleagues. Higher emotional intelligence nurses provide safe and high-quality care towards patient safety. This study was designed to be implemented on the premises of Jazan at King Fahad Hospital to examine the emotional intelligence in working nurses and how they deal with the patients.

Methods:

In this cross-sectional study, 132 individuals were recruited among working nurses based on the recommended sample size formula. Data were collected using the self-administered questionnaire from all the participated individuals after signing the consent form. This study was carried out between August 2024 and September 2024. Three scales, such as demographic data, the emotional intelligence questionnaire, and Patient Safety Scales, were used to measure the study variables with the help of a five-point Likert scale. Emotional intelligence levels were categorized as low, moderate, and high, while patient safety was assessed through adherence to safety practices.

Results:

The results of this study confirmed that emotional intelligence has a high mean value of 3.91 ± 0.57, and the Patient Safety Scale also showed 3.73 ± 0.48 levels. Correlation analysis confirmed the positive association between emotional intelligence and Patient Safety Scale (r = 0.68; p < 0.001). Bivariate analysis also showed the significant association between emotional intelligence and Patient Safety Scale in different variables studied (p < 0.05).

Conclusion:

This study validates that emotional intelligence is a significant determinant of patient safety among critical care nurses in Jazan. Nurses with high emotional intelligence are superior at handling stress, clear communication, and sounding clear in making clinical decisions, all of which contribute to safer patient care in high-stress environments. Health care organizations should focus on developing emotional intelligence through structured training programs, incorporate emotional competencies into nursing education, and tackle organizational obstacles that prevent the implementation of individual emotional skills to enhance system-level safety, as these measures can lead to improved patient outcomes and a more resilient healthcare workforce. These efforts aligned with the goals of Saudi Vision 2030, which aims to enhance the improvement of the quality of healthcare and patient safety in the Kingdom.

Keywords

emotional intelligence (EI)Patient Safety Scale critical care units patient safety nursing Jazan Saudi Arabia

Introduction

Emotional intelligence (EI) is defined as the ability to perceive, regulate, and utilize emotions effectively, which has emerged as a vital competency in healthcare.¹ The term ‘emotional intelligence’ was originally coined by John Mayer of Yale University, which stresses the ability to control one’s own feelings and emotions, accept the feelings, emotions, and opinions of others, and control social connections and behaviors.² EI has emerged as an important factor for nurses in providing effective patient care, communication, and management of stress.³ Previous studies confirmed the positive impact of EI on job performance among nurses.^4,5 EI is considered a critical aspect of an individual’s life and plays an essential role. It can direct the life path of the people and help them adapt to new conditions.⁶ EI is an important element in human growth, which involves adaptability, communication, strategic thinking, and interpersonal interactions, which will impact academic and professional success.⁷ However, EI is operated through numerous models, including ability traits and mixed models, each offering unique insights on how to build and apply emotional competence in practice.⁸

Patient safety is considered to be another important element in the healthcare sector and is considered to be a very high priority, especially in Saudi Arabia. Nurses with a lack of knowledge and EI in highly volatile conditions in the intensive care unit (ICU), Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), or other departments were compromising patient safety, and this is not accepted in Saudi Arabia. However, nurses require better education and leadership qualities to close these gaps, as communication and EI have a global impact on decreasing medical errors and mortality.^9–11 In reality, EI in nurses can improve communication, patient-centered care, and teamwork, which promotes safety. Nurses can boost patient satisfaction and job satisfaction by improving these skills.¹² In reverse, heavy stress or minimal training can negatively affect EI and care quality.¹³

In Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Patient Safety Center was established in 2017 to reduce medical errors in hospitals and clinics and improve healthcare quality across the Kingdom. Minimum studies were reported in Saudi Arabia, and further studies are recommended to understand how EI influences clinical communication for achieving these safety goals.^14–16 The important factor about EI in nursing is globally recognized. The data specific to the Jazan region in particular is lacking. A recent study from Jazan University concludes that nursing students demonstrate moderate EI, and structural EI is required critically to incorporate into the nursing course so that students can increase self-efficacy and reduce clinical stress.^17,18 In Saudi Arabia, the relationship between EI and patient safety has been documented outside of the Jazan region, which is currently expanding its rural healthcare systems in alignment with Saudi Vision 2030. Therefore, this gap in the literature must be addressed to enhance nursing practice and inform policy development. In this study, we attempted to present the research from King Fahad Hospital in Jazan, Saudi Arabia, as there are no studies reported. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of critical care nurses’ EI on patient safety in Jazan premises.

Methods

Ethical approval

Ethical grant for this study was approved from King Saud University (KSU-HE-24-506) with the collaboration of King Fahad Hospital to conduct it and additional ethical approval was granted from Jazan Health Cluster (no. 2446). Prior to enrollment in this study, a consent form was signed and a questionnaire was filled out. These ethical standards ensured that the research was conducted in Jazan City, considering participants’ rights, autonomy, and well-being, while maintaining the integrity and reliability of the protocol.

Study details

This study was carried out on critical care nurses at King Fahad Hospital, Jizan, Saudi Arabia. The study explores and enhances the relationship between ‘EI’ and patient safety and identifies it as a key factor. The duration of this study was conducted between August 2024 and September 2024.

Study settings

This is a cross-sectional study carried out on nurses to investigate the impact of EI in critical care. This study examines the specific variables at a single point for one time, enabling researchers to identify the interrelationships between the variables.¹⁹ King Fahad Hospital has a capacity of around 500 beds and employs over 200 nursing staff across different departments. The primary focus of this study was the critical care units and medical–surgical departments within the hospital premises, which also included an ICU with a 50-bed capacity. Nurses who had been working in different critical care nursing units such as the ICU, NICU, and medical–surgical departments for a minimum period of 6 months or 180 days were eligible to participate in this study.

Study criteria

The inclusion criteria for this study included participants who were nurses employed in the adult critical care department at King Fahad Hospital. Participants who were working outside the adult critical care department at King Fahad Hospital or those working in other hospitals in Jazan or elsewhere in Saudi Arabia were excluded from this study.

Sample size

The sample size for this study was calculated based on the previous study by Alreshidi,¹⁸ which reported a mean ± standard deviation (SD) EI score of 4.73 ± 0.16. Using a precision of 0.027 and 95% confidence level, the required sample size was determined to be approximately by 132 participants. Based on the sample size, we enrolled 132 nurses. The sample size for this study was determined using Raosoft software (Seattle, Washington, USA), for power analysis for accurate enrollment of the participants to detect the significant relationships between the variables.

Measurement of data collection

The EI questionnaire and Patient Safety Scale questionnaire was assessed using the validated Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (WLEIS), a 16-item instrument based on the ability model of EI, and this document can be found in the Supplementary Files. The scale citation was stated in the number format in square brackets as follows: (1) strongly disagree, (2) disagree, (3) neutral, (4) agree, and (5) strongly agree. The data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire, which consists of three parts: (1) demographic data, (2) EI questionnaire, and (3) Patient Safety Scale. The initial part consists of demographic details, and it involves age, gender, working experience, educational profile, marital status, and other details. The other part of the EI questionnaire tool is used to evaluate the ability of an individual to identify, understand, control, and effectively utilize emotions in various contexts. In this section, 16 question items were generated. The final part involves the Patient Safety Scale from the World Health Organization, World Alliance for Patient Safety. In this section, 26 items were categorized into four sections: (i) eight items were involved for safety in the workplace, (ii) personal safety influences six items, (iii) personal attitude towards patient safety involves seven items, and (iv) five items are with safety within the healthcare system. The documented responses were recorded on a five-point Likert scale ranging between 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).²⁰ For each participant, the mean scores were calculated for the EI scale, which has 16 items, and 26 items for patient safety scales. The mean scores between 1 and 5 will be used for statistical analyses. However, for descriptive categories, EI levels were defined as low (<50%, mean score <2.5), moderate (50%–75%; mean score 2.5–3.75), and high (>75%, mean score >3.75).

Statistical analysis

Using SPSS (IBM Corporation, SPSS 27, Armonk, New York, USA), and Python (Python 3.14.0) software’s (versions 27.0 and 3.10), the statistical analysis and data visualization were performed for this study. The figures generated for this study are to demonstrate the demographic and score distributions, correlation presentations, and conceptual frameworks used in this study data. A p < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant (p < 0.05).

Results

Demographic analysis

Figure 1 of this study presents demographic information of the 132 enrolled nurses. Almost three-quarters of the participants (77.3%) were females and 22.7% were male participants. The 16.7% of the nurses who participated in this study were in the age range of 20–25 years, while the majority of participants were aged between 25 and 30 years old, with a prevalence of 37.9%. Next, 28.8% of the nurses were aged between 30 and 35, and then 16.7% of the nurses were aged above 35 years. The nurses with Saudi nationality were enrolled to be 51.5% and 48.5% to be expatriate nurses. The marital status of participants in this study was found to be 59.8% as married and 40.2% as single. In terms of professional experiences, 36.4% of the nurses had experience between 1 and 5 years, while, 35.6% had 5–10 years, and 19.7% of the professional nurses had between 10 and 15 years. Finally, 8.3% of nurses were found to have more than 15 years of working experience. When it comes to educational profile, 74.2% of the participating nurses had a bachelor’s degree in nursing, 13.6% had a postgraduate degree and lastly, only 12.2% had a diploma degree.

Figure 1.

Demographic details of the involved participants in this study.

Descriptive analysis

In this study, for each participant, 16 EI items will be the average scores to produce a composite mean score on a 1–5 metric, which was retained for all statistical analysis. For descriptive categorization purposes, percentage scores were resulting from these mean scores using this formula: Percentage score = (mean score/5) × 100%. Thus, this formula confirms EI mean scores for low, moderate, and high will be <2.5, 2.5–3.75, and >3.75. The average EI score of 3.91 is equal to a percentage score of 78.2%, which will be in the high range. Table 1 shows descriptive statistics for EI and patient safety scores. The participants had a high degree of EI with a score of 3.91 ± 0.57. The overall patient safety score was 3.73 ± 0.48. Among the patient safety subdomains, personal attitudes (PA) of patient safety showed 4.08 ± 0.60, which is the highest mean score, and it suggests positive attitudes towards patient safety. In safety of the healthcare system (SH), the mean score was 3.58 ± 0.61, which is the lowest mean score observed and indicates comparatively less favorable perceptions of system-level safety. Overall, the EI mean score (3.91 ± 0.57) corresponds to the maximum probable score 78.2%, as it can indicate the high level of EI among the involved nurses in this study.

Table 1.

Descriptive analysis of EI and Patient Safety Scale.

Parameters	Mean (SD)	Minimum	Maximum
EI	3.91 (0.57)	1.56	5.00
Patient Safety Scale (overall):	3.73 (0.48)	1.85	5.00
SH	3.58 (0.61)	2.00	5.00
PI	3.65 (0.61)	1.43	5.00
PA	4.08 (0.60)	2.20	5.00
SW	3.69 (0.57)	1.50	5.00

EI: emotional intelligence; PA: personal attitudes to patient safety; PI: personal influence over safety; SD: standard deviation; SH: safety of the healthcare system; SW: safety at the workplace.

Correlation analysis

In this study, Table 2 indicates a substantial positive association (r = 0.68, p < 0.001) between EI and the patient safety scale.

Table 2.

Correlation between emotional intelligence and safety scale as perceived by staff nurses.

Parameter	Emotional intelligence
Parameter	r	p value
Patient’s safety	0.68	<0.001

Reliability analysis

The reliability analysis of EI and patient safety instruments using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) is signifies in Table 3. The EI scale exhibits exceptional reliability (ICC = 0.91), while the overall patient safety scale also reflects substantial reliability (ICC = 0.89). Among the sub-domains of the PA, strong reliability is revealed (ICC = 0.84), and the SH sub-domain showed moderate reliability (ICC = 0.66), which indicates that the items in the domain may capture identical items of heterogeneous aspects of system-level safety assessments. These findings should be recognized when evaluating the results in precise to this sub-domain. All ICC values found a significant association (p < 0.001), showing acceptable to exceptional internal consistency across all domains.

Table 3.

Reliability of questions of each domain.

Parameters	ICC	95% CI	p value
EI	0.91	0.88–0.93	<0.001
Patient Safety Scale (overall)	0.89	0.85–0.91	<0.001
SH	0.66	0.57–0.75	<0.001
PI	0.72	0.64–0.79	<0.001
PA	0.84	0.79–0.88	<0.001
SW	0.76	0.69–0.82	<0.001

EI: emotional intelligence; ICC: intraclass correlation coefficient; PA: personal attitudes to patient safety; PI: personal influence over safety; SH: safety of the healthcare system; SW: safety at the workplace.

Bivariate analysis

The comparison between EI and patient safety scales concerning demographic and baseline characteristic details is present in Table 4. There was an immense impact in personal influence over safety (PI) scores between male and female nurses (p < 0.001), with male nurses having higher PI scores. The overall patient safety scores also differed by gender (p = 0.006), with male participants again having higher values. There was a strong connection between EI scores and work experience (p = 0.006), nurses with 15 years of experience having the highest EI scores (4.36 ± 0.52). However, no significant differences were documented in age, experience, or educational qualification.

Table 4.

Comparison of EI and Patient Safety Scale with demographic features.

Parameters	EI	SH	PI	PA	SW	Overall patient safely
Parameters	Mean (SD)
Gender (p value)	0.54	<0.001	<0.001	0.09	0.19	0.006
Female	3.90 (0.59)	3.54 (0.58)	3.54 (0.59)	4.03 (0.63)	3.65 (0.56)	3.67 (0.46)
Male	3.97 (0.49)	3.71 (0.72)	4.05 (0.51)	4.24 (0.44)	3.80 (0.61)	3.94 (0.48)
Age (p value)	0.06	0.18	0.30	0.20	0.19	0.19
20–25	3.87 (0.59)	3.81 (0.71)	3.78 (0.83)	4.10 (0.58)	3.70 (0.63)	3.82 (0.59)
25–30	3.76 (0.63)	3.48 (0.64)	3.57 (0.54)	3.94 (0.63)	3.55 (0.59)	3.62 (0.50)
30–35	4.07 (0.47)	3.63 (0.54)	3.76 (0.56)	4.20 (0.59)	3.76 (0.55)	3.82 (0.41)
⩾35	4.04 (0.54)	3.51 (0.55)	3.52 (0.69)	4.15 (0.51)	3.83 (0.46)	3.74 (0.37)
Nationality (p value)	0.75	0.002	0.28	0.80	0.58	0.16
Non-Saudi	3.90 (0.46)	3.42 (0.46)	3.59 (0.47)	4.09 (0.52)	3.66 (0.43)	3.67 (0.28)
Saudi	3.90 (0.57)	3.74 (0.71)	3.71 (0.72)	4.06 (0.67)	3.71 (0.67)	3.79 (0.60)
Marital status (p value)	0.72	0.04	0.18	0.27	0.16	0.07
Married	3.89 (0.57)	3.50 (0.57)	3.59 (0.52)	4.03 (0.60)	3.63 (0.53)	3.66 (0.42)
Single	3.94 (0.58)	3.74 (0.72)	3.74 (0.72)	4.15 (0.58)	3.77 (0.62)	3.82 (0.54)
Experience (p value)	0.006	0.88	0.56	0.21	0.06	0.25
1–<5 years	3.78 (0.66)	3.58 (0.62)	3.56 (0.67)	3.98 (0.67)	3.58 (0.61)	3.65 (0.55)
5–<10 years	4.01 (0.48)	3.59 (0.55)	3.67 (0.55)	4.12 (0.56)	3.69 (0.54)	3.74 (0.42)
10–<15 years	3.77 (0.46)	3.53 (0.69)	3.75 (0.49)	4.06 (0.54)	3.71 (0.47)	3.75 (0.38)
15 years and above	4.36 (0.52)	3.71 (0.73)	3.74 (0.83)	4.38 (0.50)	4.09 (0.65)	3.97 (0.54)
Education (p value)	0.80	0.07	0.71	0.73	0.82	0.46
Secondary school diploma	4.00 (0.66)	3.35 (0.71)	3.62 (0.80)	4.14 (0.54)	3.69 (0.66)	3.68 (0.57)
Bachelor’s degree in nursing	3.89 (0.57)	3.57 (0.58)	3.64 (0.59)	4.05 (0.61)	3.67 (0.57)	3.71 (0.47)
Postgraduate degree	3.92 (0.53)	3.84 (0.66)	3.76 (0.55)	4.16 (0.59)	3.76 (0.53)	3.86 (0.42)

EI: emotional intelligence; PA: personal attitudes to patient safety; PI: personal influence over safety; SD: standard deviation; SH: safety of the healthcare system; SW: safety at the workplace.

Visual analysis

Figure 2 boxplot represents 50% of the scores in the middle, while the line inside the box represents the median, which signifies that more experienced nurses have a higher or more stable EI compared to younger nurses. The visualization analysis for Pearson correlation represents r = 0.68. The blue dots in Figure 3 characterize moves from the bottom–left to the top–right side and confirm a strong positive correlation. Further, it also proves as nurses EI increases, their safety performance is also improved significantly. The radar chart in Figure 4 shows use of emotion is present with highest peak, suggesting nurses are particularly good at motivating themselves to provide care in spite of the emotional toll. The analysis for Figure 5 confirms personal attitudes had the high score in comparison with a lower score in system safety. This indicates the nurses are personally committed to safety and feel the hospital’s administrative system or environment could be improved. Figure 6 explains the roadmap for this study and displays how EI directly affects patient safety.

Figure 2.

Distribution of mean EI scores among age groups.

Figure 3.

Impact of EI on patient safety scores.

Figure 4.

Correlation analysis between EI and overall patient safety scores.

Figure 5.

Conceptual framework of four domains of the patient safety profile.

Figure 6.

Conceptual framework of the relationship between EI on patient safety.

Discussion

EI is a multidimensional concept in which communication effectiveness is clearly associated, and it helps to provide better care to patients in the hospital.²¹ ICU is a high-pressure, volatile environment that demands rapid decision-making for complex, life-threatening cases, and EI serves as a critical safety mechanism. Nurses bridge the gap between technical proficiency and patient interaction through self-regulation and improving situational awareness, thereby moderating risks, and ensuring safe and accurate patient care.²² The main purpose of conducting this study is to identify the significant challenges observed in the ICU that directly impacted patient safety, with EI identified as a key factor lacking focus in professional development. High levels of stress and constant pressure negatively affect communication and decision-making, eventually leading to errors. EI levels differ among working nurses based on their experience and skill sets.²³ These findings motivated the exploration of the relationship between EI and patient safety.

This study is conducted among critical care nurses working in Jizan premises in Saudi Arabia to address an important gap in regional research by exploring how EI can help manage the unique high-stress demands of the ICU and align local nursing practices with the Kingdom’s goal of improving healthcare quality and patient safety as stated in Saudi Vision 2030. Moreover, this study aims to explore how EI can assist critical care nurses in Jizan in managing high-stress work environment to improve patient safety and aligns with the Kingdom’s Vision.

This study results discovered a strong positive association (r = 0.68, p < 0.001) between EI and patient safety among critical care nurses in the Jazan region. The nurses have confirmed high EI levels (3.91 ± 0.57), particularly with strong scores in personal attitudes toward patient safety (4.08 ± 0.60) and lower scores in perceptions of healthcare system safety (3.58 ± 0.61). Experience was a major factor related to EI, while gender influenced patient safety outcomes, indicating that more experienced nurses tend to have higher EI and that gender differences may affect how patient safety is perceived and prioritized in critical care settings. Collectively, these findings suggest that while the nursing staff is emotionally equipped, the safety outcomes could be further optimized by addressing systematic institutional barriers and providing targeted EI training to young nurses with limited experience.

The findings of Figures 2 to 6 demonstrate through the general visual data, which provides the comprehensive aspect at the intersection of EI and clinical safety. Figure 2 suggests that EI remains relatively high, and the differences across age groups highlight the potential for targeted EI training for younger staff to bridge the gap in the clinical safety experience. Figure 6 establishes a clear theoretical link, that is, empirically validated by the Scatter plot present in Figure 3, and later it demonstrates a robust positive correlation (r = 0.68), suggesting EI competency is not merely a soft skill but a predictor of patient safety outcomes. Furthermore, the radar charts present in Figures 4 and 5, identified as the specific strengths within the nursing cohort, particularly in ‘use of emotion’ and ‘personal attitudes towards safety’, indicates while the commitment of nurses is high, systematic factors denote the safety domains that require ongoing attention. Overall, these figures underscore that improving the ability of nurses to regulate and utilize emotions is a variable strategy for reducing medical errors at King Fahad Hospital.

A meta-analysis study was conducted between EI and patient safety among the nurses and concludes as multi-dimensional, integrated EI is significantly improved EI among ICU nurses.²⁴ The findings of the present study are consistent with this meta-analysis and other studies carried among nurses working in hospitals worldwide.^22,25–27

Previous studies also support our study, as ICU nurses demonstrate moderate to high levels of EI.^28,29 Consistent with previous research, high EI scores were associated with enhanced psychological well-being, professional interactions, and stress management.^28,30,31 However, much lower self-management scores suggest a requirement for specific EI training programs to develop emotional regulation skills.^32,33

The results of this study align with previous research that shows a positive association between EI and patient safety outcomes in various healthcare settings.^20,34 This study reported elevated EI scores (3.91 ± 0.57) among ICU nurses in other Middle Eastern regions.^22,27 However, the relatively low score levels were documented in the Saudi hospitals,¹¹ confirming that while individual nurses are emotionally equipped to deliver safe care, organizational barriers such as inadequate staffing, lack of training, and insufficient support may impede the translation of these competencies into optimal safety outcomes.

In Jazan region, the combination of cultural backgrounds, robust communication ties, and shared values could impact EI expression and patient safety protocols. Studies on comparable conflict-impacted groups with similar cultural traits show that health-related actions are influenced equally by group-based coping strategies and social ties as by personal cognitive abilities.^21,23,35 Nurses with higher EI exhibited enhanced coping strategies in the neonatal ICU, especially in handling stress and emotional challenges that directly affect patient safety.²⁵ Thus, these findings demonstrate the importance of developing theoretical concepts that expand beyond Western culture models to represent them more accurately.

This study found positive perceptions of patient safety with a strong attitude towards safety measures and workplace safety culture through knowledge gaps.^34,36 Along with this study, previous studies also in accordance with the patient safety were influenced by institutional factors which involves training interaction, workload, and communication system influenced patient safety perceptions more than demographic features alone.^34,36,37 However, communication challenges, patient selection, and a high workload were identified as important barriers to safety, showing the importance of developed security procedures and interdisciplinary collaboration.^37,38

When it comes to correlation studies between EI and patient safety, our study comes under this category along with previously published studies and indicates nurses with high EI scores can handle the stress of professional communication and make clinical decisions that are considered safe for patients.^39–41 Additionally, EI also played a protective role against psychosocial risk factor.⁴¹ The results of this study confirm demands for including EI development into nurse education and professional development to improve safety and health quality.^39,40

Regression analysis further demonstrated that the professional experience of working nurses was a significant indicator of EI, supporting the concept that clinical exposure shapes emotional skills, and documented previous studies were in agreement with our study.^42,43 Gender differences were observed in patient safety outcomes, with females experiencing high-frequency outcomes; however, some studies do not align with our findings.^43,44 In this study, age and educational levels showed inconsistent associations with EI. Finally, our study highlights the importance of EI among nurses to organize the hospitals and treat patient safety during critical conditions. This study also recommends conducting the courses or training to improve nurse education and clinical practice for improving patient safety, mental health, and treatment quality in critical conditions.

Previous studies have documented the relationship between EI and patient safety in different regions of Saudi Arabia.^{3,39,40,45–48} There are no studies from the Jazan region documented on the working nurses in any hospitals, and this study could be the initial study to document EI among nurses and patient safety. However, Shubayr and Dailah¹⁷ carried out a study among nursing students in clinical practices in Jazan. One of the main reasons for conducting this study in Jazan City is to investigate the influence of EI on patient safety within a rapidly growing rural healthcare system that falls under Saudi Vision 2030 to provide the best healthcare quality.

Strengths

This is the first study completed in the Jazan region to examine the association between EI and patient safety among the critical care nurses. The use of WLEIS and the WHO Patient Safety Scale was another limitation of this study to validate the instruments. Finally, this study has addressed the significant regional research gap in the Jazan region of Saudi Arabia.

Limitations

(i) This study is designed as a cross-sectional study with single-source, and limits the ability to establish causal relationships between EI and patient safety, (ii) longitudinal studies are required to evaluate changes over time, (iii) it relies on self-reported studies, which may be biased by introduced responses and social desirability, and it could impair the accuracy of EI and patient safety measurements, (iv) it has a small sample size, (v) it is a single-center study with a limited number of recruited nurses involved in this study, (vi) this study has limited generalizability is limited to a single hospital; it does not incorporate multivariable modeling, which could provide a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between EI and patient safety outcomes, and (vii) the sample size included in this study was based on the previous study, which reports the narrow SD and may have overestimated precision. However, for future studies, a large sample size is required, and different samples are recommended to confirm these study findings.

Implications of this study

The implications of this study consist of the direct implications for (i) nursing practice, (ii) education, and (iii) research.

Nursing practice: Critical care nurses with higher EI are recommended to handle the stress and communicate with the patients, and both these are important factors for patient safety. Nurse managers should consider the integration of EI assessment into recruitment and professional developmental procedures. The structured EI training programs, such as simulation-based conditions, can improve the patient safety skills of nursing employees, especially for the newly hired employees.

Education: EI is considered a core skill among the nursing programs, along with technical abilities. Nursing students should be well-trained to handle the high-pressure situations among critical care units in the workplace and control their emotions and improve communication skills with the patients. Future nurses should learn the importance of self-awareness and empathy for safe, patient-centered care.

Research: Future studies should use longitudinal designs to evaluate the causal associations between EI and patient safety outcomes. Multi-center research should involve numerous Saudi hospitals to improve generalizability. Additionally, interventional studies assessing the effectiveness of EI training programs to undertake objective measures of patient safety are to be studied on a high-demand basis.

Conclusion

This study validates that EI is a significant determinant of patient safety among critical care nurses in Jazan. Nurses with high EI are superior at handling stress, clear communication, and sounding clear in making the clinical decisions, all of which contribute to safer patient care in high-stress environments. Health care organizations should focus on developing EI through structured training programs, incorporate emotional competencies into nursing education, and tackle organizational obstacles that prevent the implementation of individual emotional skills to enhance system-level safety, as these measures can lead to improved patient outcomes and a more resilient healthcare workforce. These efforts aligned with the goals of Saudi Vision 2030, which enhance the improvement of the quality of healthcare and patient safety in the Kingdom.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-smo-10.1177_20503121261445212 – Supplemental material for Effects of critical care nurses’ emotional intelligence on patient safety at King Fahad Hospital in Jazan province

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-smo-10.1177_20503121261445212 for Effects of critical care nurses’ emotional intelligence on patient safety at King Fahad Hospital in Jazan province by Saudah Dibaji, Nawal Dibaji, Layla Atti, Fatimah Moqri, Balgees Makin, Ohud Shutayfi, Gameela Ogdi, Bijesh Yadav and Imran Ali Khan in SAGE Open Medicine

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to the participated nurses involved in this study.

ORCID iD

Imran Ali Khan

Ethical considerations

Ethical approval to perform this study was granted by King Saud University (KSU-HE-24-506) as well as the Jazan Health Cluster (no. 2446). This study formed the protocol and guidelines stated in the Declaration of Helsinki.

Consent to participate

All participants signed an informed consent form before enrolling in this study.

Author contributions

Designed – S.D. and I.A.K. Conducted – S.D. and I.A.K. Performed analysis – S.D. Drafted article – I.A.K. Advised on the study design – S.D., N.D., L.A., F.M., B.M., O.S., G.O., and I.A.K. Facilitated data collection – S.D., N.D., L.A., F.M., B.M., O.S., and G.O. Helped data collection – S.D., N.D., L.A., F.M., B.M., O.S., and G.O. Interpretation of data by article preparation – I.A.K.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data availability statement

The data sets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the first author or corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

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