A team of academics from CQU’s School of Nursing and Health Studies has been successful in receiving a Queensland Nursing Council grant to undertake an emotional intelligence project.

The project, “Development of emotional intelligence in nursing undergraduate students”, has been applauded by Head of School, Dr Lorna Moxham.

“Well done to all involved in what is important research that contributes to nursing education and positive client outcomes”.

The aim of the project is to compare students from a previous curriculum in which no emotional intelligence was overtly taught, to the students undertaking the current curriculum in which they are introduced to emotional intelligence in the first few weeks of study and encouraged via a variety of mediums to develop this skill. Another aim is to track this development over the course of 3 years.

Project team member Wendy Madsen said while emotional intelligence has been studied extensively in discipline areas such as business and psychology, it has only recently gained attention within nursing, and then mostly at management levels.

“The concept of being able to reflect effectively on one's own behaviours and the impact these have on others (the essence of emotional intelligence) is important for nurses as this forms the basis of the therapeutic relationship nurses have with their patients".