Development Strategies in Medical Education

Introduction: One of the important requirements of nursing profession is to have critical thinking skills for the success in clinical settings. Emotional intelligence is an important factor for improving critical thinking. This study examined the relationship between emotional intelligence and critical thinking among nursing students of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences.

Methods: This was a descriptive–correlational research. The data was collected by standard Emotional Intelligence and Critical Thinking questionnaires. A sample of 200 participants was selected randomly from nursing students of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. To analyze the data, Pearson Coefficient inferential statistics, regression analysis, multivariate analysis of variance and t-test were used.

Results: The results detected that there is a significant relationship between emotional intelligence and critical thinking skills among male and female students. Female students had higher levels of emotional intelligence and critical thinking than male students.

Conclusion: Fostering critical thinking and emotional intelligence among nursing students would help them improve social relationships and their ability to resolve conflicts this could also enhance nursing students' problem-solving skills and judgment abilities which in turn leads to providing more qualified clinical services.