Daniela Markova

Daniela Markova obtained her Master’s degree in Nursing from Chamberlain University, USA. She has worked as a registered nurse on three continents. Her main interests are nursing, philosophy, and psychology. At the moment she works for a patient assistance program. Taking care of patients and their families when they are most vulnerable is rewarding but often very stressful. Workload, shift work, insufficient rest, communicational or organizational deficiencies also lead to increased stress and lowered resilience. The consequential repercussions are distress, dysfunctional attitude and behavior at work, poor patient care, depression, and desire to leave work among others. Managing stress depends mostly from the person’s coping skills, an important part of which is their emotional intelligence. Along with nursing knowledge and skills, self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills are essential for the nursing practice. Emotional intelligence has been a focus of international nursing research for the last twenty years. The importance of emotional intelligence in nursing is also recognized in Bulgaria but more research is needed. A pilot study to determine the baseline of emotional intelligence among nurses in hospitals and clinics in North-East Bulgaria is presented.