The mediating effect of job satisfaction between emotional intelligence and organisational commitment of nurses: A questionnaire survey Gu ¨ldal Gu ¨leryu ¨z a, * , Semra Gu ¨ney b , Eren Miski Aydın b ,O ¨ znur As ¸an b a Hacettepe University, Department of Industrial Engineering, 06800 Ankara, Turkey b Hacettepe University, Department of Business Administration, Turkey Received 23 May 2007; received in revised form 30 January 2008; accepted 1 February 2008 Abstract Background: The effect of emotional intelligence and its dimensions on job satisfaction and organisational commitment of nurses has been investigated in this study. Objectives: This paper examines the relations among emotional intelligence, job satisfaction and organisational commitment of nurses and the mediating effect of job satisfaction between emotional intelligence and organisational commitment. Design: A questionnaire survey was carried out to explore the relations between emotional intelligence, job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Setting: Teaching hospital in Ankara, Turkey. Participants: Questionnaires were distributed by Nursing Services Administration to 550 nurses working at different departments of the hospital and 267 questionnaires were analyzed. Methods: A 45-item questionnaire which consists of emotional intelligence, job satisfaction and organisational commitment parts was carried out to investigate the relations among these variables. Some basic socio-demographic questions were included. Results: Emotional intelligence was significantly and positively related to job satisfaction ðr ¼ 0:236; p  0:01Þ and organisational commitment ðr ¼ 0:229; p  0:01Þ. The positive relation between job satisfaction and organisational commit- ment was also significant ðr ¼ 0:667; p  0:01Þ. Job satisfaction was found to be related with ‘‘regulation of emotion (ROE)’’ ðr ¼ 0:228; p  0:01Þ and ‘‘use of emotion (UOE)’’ ðr ¼ 0:155; p  0:01Þ but not with other dimensions of emotional intelligence. ‘‘Others’s emotional appraisal’’ did not have any relations with job satisfaction or organisational commitment and ‘‘self-emotional appraisal (SEA)’’ was found to be a suppressor. Conclusion: It was found that job satisfaction is a mediator between emotional intelligence and organisational commitment. The other finding of the study was that ‘‘SEA’’ and ‘‘UOE’’ have direct effects on organisational commitment whereas job satisfaction is a mediator between ‘‘regulation of emotion’’ and organisational commitment. # 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Emotional intelligence; Job satisfaction; Organisational commitment; Mediating effect; Nursing What is already known about the topic?  Emotional intelligence is an important concept for nursing.  Organisational commitment is a variable affecting orga- nisational effectiveness and efficiency. www.elsevier.com/ijns Available online at www.sciencedirect.com International Journal of Nursing Studies 45 (2008) 1625–1635 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 312 2978705. E-mail address: guldal@hacettepe.edu.tr (G. Gu ¨leryu ¨z). 0020-7489/$ – see front matter # 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2008.02.004