Abstract:
Emotional quotient is an important factor for enhancing nursing students abilities to
adapt themselves when faced with stressful situations. These would help promote good mental
health. The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to examine the effect of the Emotional
Quotient enhancement program on mental health among 52 first year nursing students of
Boromarajonani College of Nursing, Suphanburi, in academic year 2017. They were randomly
assigned into either the experimental group (n= 26) and the control group (n= 26). The research
instruments include the data recording form, the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ 28) with
Cronbachs alpha of .80, and the Emotional Quotient enhancement program. This program
include the 8 sessions of group activities, which conducted twice sessions per week for 4 week
period. Data collection were conducted from January to March, 2018. Descriptive statistics,
independent t-test, two-way repeated measures ANOVA and pairwise comparison using
Bonferroni method were employed to analyze the data.
The results showed that the experimental group had the mean scores of mental health
at post-test and 1-month follow-up significantly higher than the control group at p< .001. In the
experimental group, the mean scores of mental health at post-test (X = 8.35, SD = 2.17), and
1month follow-up (X = 6.96, SD = 2.73) were lower than at pre-test (X = 10.42, SD = 3.04) with
p< .001.
The results revealed that this program could effectively decrease mental health
problems among nursing students. Therefore, nurses and related health care providers could apply
this program to promote mental health among nursing students in the other years of study or other
university students.