The nexus between health workers’ emotional intelligence and job performance : Controlling for gender, education, tenure and in-service training

Purpose This study aims to examine the effect of health workers’ emotional intelligence (EI) on job performance (JP), with potential confounding variables controlled for. The confounding variables introduced are gender, education, tenure and level of access to in-service training. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional quantitative research design was used in this study. A self-reported questionnaire was used to collect data from 1,163 health professionals, who were selected using the simple random sampling method. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to test a framework of hypotheses. Findings The resulting CFA model is of a good fit at 5 per cent significance level [chi-square ( χ 2 ) = 1.492; p = 0.222]. Moreover, the study finds that EI significantly predicts JP among health workers after controlling for the lurking variables. Originality/value Though several studies have confirmed that EI makes a significant positive effect on health workers’ JP, none of them controlled for potential confounding variables. For this reason, the effect detected in previous studies could include the influence of lurking variables and is consequently spurious. Apart from contributing to extant literature, this study controls for these lurking variables in an attempt to enhance the value of empirical evidence that supports the relevance of EI to health-care performance.