Personality traits and emotional intelligence among health care professionals in a tertiary hospital

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is considered fundamental to get along with others in the workplace. The dearth of literature on personality traits and EI among healthcare professionals calls for concerns. Therefore, this study examined personality traits and emotional intelligence among healthcare professionals in a tertiary hospital in Maiduguri. A cross-sectional survey design was adopted, and an accidental sampling technique was employed to select 91 healthcare professionals with mean (1.3) age and Standard Deviation (0.46). Hierarchical regression analysis and t-test for independent measures were used, in step one of the regression, age significantly predicted EI (β = -0.27, t = -2.46, p < 0.05). Further t-test analysis to know the direction of the predicted variable (age) on EI showed that younger healthcare professionals are higher on EI [t (89) = 2.44, p < 0.05] than their counterpart. In step 2, psychoticism predicted EI in such a way that EI increases with a decrease in psychoticism trait (β = -0.33, t = -3.01, p < 0.05). In conclusion, personality traits predict EI among healthcare professionals, also, being low on psychoticism traits and younger age predicted EI. It is therefore recommended that EI screening should be an essential prerequisite for recruiting healthcare professionals and subsequently, healthcare professionals that are young, soft-minded, empathetic, less aggressive and impulsive should be allowed to handle those professionals issues that are highly emotional or sensitive in workplace.   Key words: Emotional intelligence, healthcare professionals, personality traits.