The Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence and Sleep Quality in Female High School Students: A Web-based Cross-sectional Study

Background Emotional intelligence as the ability to understand emotions in self and others, is recognized as underlying success in various aspects. Objective This study aimed to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and sleep quality in female high school students. Methods This cross-sectional study was conducted on 284 female high school students in Rasht in 2019-2020, selected by cluster sampling. Demographic, the Bar-On emotional intelligence, and the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) questionnaires were completed online by the participants. Data were analyzed by IBM SPSS statistics software, version 22 using Spearman’s correlation coefficient and multiple logistic regression analysis. Results The Mean age of participants was 13.94±0.95 years, and the mean previous grade point average (GPA) of participants was 19.61±0.89. The Mean total score of students’ emotional intelligence and sleep quality were 334.95±42.82 and 4.71±3.20, respectively. There was a significant negative correlation between the total score of emotional intelligence and sleep quality (r=-0.427 and P<0.001). Also, 31% of the subjects had poor sleep quality (95% CI, 25.7%-36.6%), and the multiple logistic regression showed an inverse relationship between poor sleep quality and emotional intelligence score (OR=0.98, P<0.001). There was no association between demographic variables and sleep quality (P>0.05). Conclusion About a third of female students had poor sleep quality. There was a significant relationship between sleep quality and emotional intelligence. Therefore, poor sleep quality was associated with lower emotional intelligence.