Emotional Intelligence Training and Nursing Performance Across Time: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Madinah Hospitals

Abstract

Background: Emotional intelligence (EI) is increasingly treated as a trainable professional competency, yet evidence connecting EI education to practicing nurses' performance in Saudi hospitals remains limited. Objective: To examine nursing performance within and between experimental and control groups at baseline, one week, and three weeks after an EI training program, and to characterize the group-by-time pattern. Methods: A two-group randomized controlled trial enrolled 120 registered nurses from Al Haram and Alsalam Hospitals in Madinah (60 per group). The experimental group completed a four-week, 11-module EI program using lectures, discussion, case studies, reflection, role-play, and simulation; controls received routine hospital education unrelated to EI. Nursing performance was measured with an adapted nine-item Nursing Performance Instrument (range 318-325). Results: Experimental-group scores increased from 34.50 ± 3.38 at baseline to 39.17 ± 2.66 at week 1 and 39.28 ± 2.65 at week 3. Control scores declined from 26.68 ± 4.57 to 22.62 ± 3.88 and 22.40 ± 3.68. Between-group differences were significant at each assessment (all p < .001), and the reported within-group repeated-measures test was significant in the experimental group (F = 220.955, p < .001). Difference-in-differences estimates were 8.73 points at week 1 and 9.06 points at week 3. The archived output did not include the omnibus group-by-time F statistic, so the interaction should be formally re-estimated from participant-level data before submission. Conclusion: EI training was associated with rapid, sustained improvement in self-reported nursing performance, but baseline imbalance and incomplete interaction reporting warrant baseline-adjusted reanalysis and cautious causal interpretation.