The mediating role of emotional intelligence on nursing students’ coping strategies and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Anxiety among nursing students documented during the COVID-19 pandemic reflected their fear of contracting infections, adhering to the mandatory use of masks in public, engaging in the new experience of distance learning, having financial problems, and so on. The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating role of emotional intelligence (EI) on nursing students’ coping strategies and anxiety during the pandemic. This cross-sectional correlational study was conducted in a university in Jordan. An online survey was used to obtain data from a sample of 282 nursing students who had returned to on-campus learning during the summer semester of 2019/2020. The survey held four parts: (a) questions about sociodemographics, (b) the General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) scale, (c) the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire-Short Form (TEIQue-SF), and (d) the Brief-Coping Behavior Questionnaire (Brief-COPE). The results showed that EI had a fully mediating role in the relationship between problem-focused coping strategies and anxiety, and it partially mediated the emotion-focused and avoidant/dysfunctional coping strategies and anxiety relationships. Nursing students who used the problem-focused coping strategies had high levels of EI, and with increasing levels of EI, anxiety levels decreased. Promoting the development of EI among nursing students would enable them to manage their emotions effectively and control their anxiety, particularly in new circumstances such as those that occurred during the COVID 19 pandemic.