Application of Structural Equations Modeling to Assess Relationship among Emotional Intelligence, General Health and Occupational Accidents

摘要

ORIGINAL ARTICLE Emotional intelligence (EI) has been subject of significant amounts of literature over the past two decades. However, little has been contributed to how emotional intelligence may be practically applied to enhance both accident prevention program and general health in workplaces. Purpose of this paper is to survey relationship among these variables in working society of Iran in 2014. As well as identify practical approaches to application of emotional intelligence skills to manage work change process.This was a cross-sectional study, conducted among all workers in functional units of a manufacturing company (n=178), located in a central province in Iran. Emotional intelligence assessed using Bradberry and Greaves’ questionnaire and Goldberg’s General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) was the other tool used in the study. Descriptive statistics used to describe data by SPSS V22. Also, relationship among studied factors analyzed applying structural equations (SEM) modeling by EQS software. Majority of workers (99.32%) were male. Mean (SD) age was 39.13 (8.23) also 64.19% of participants were married. Mean and standard deviation of EI score calculated 90.64 and 19.33, respectively. Also, results indicated that mean of GH score was 22.24 (±9.83). Analyzing relation between main variables (EI & GH) with occupational accidents depicted that both of them are in significant relationship with accident (P<0.05). Regard to relationship between emotional intelligence and general health with occurrence of accidents in workplace and GH improvement with increase in EI, three strategies are recommended: appropriate job selection, Suitable training and intervention for workplace condition improvement.