Abstract
The purpose of this research was to clarify the aspect of nurses' emotional intelligence affecting their mental health. The results of this research were considered to be useful materials for supporting the maintenance and promotion of nurses' mental health. In this research, mental health was defined as a degree of positive emotion and emotional intelligence was defined as a sentimental intellect controlling emotions for the maintenance and promotion of mental and physical health. The data on 112 nurses working at two hospitals in local cities from September to December were used. The degree of their mental health was measured using the subjective well-being inventory (SUBI), and their emotional intelligence was determined using the emotional intelligence scale (EQS). PASW Statistics 18 was also used for analysis. In order to clarify the factors actually affecting mental health, a multiple linear regression analysis was conducted by specifying the degree of mental health of SUBI as the dependent variable and the factors of EQS indicating a significant correlation with the degree of mental health as the main independent variable. As a result, concerning the factors of emotional intelligence (sentimental intellect), adaptability eagerness and optimistic disposition were identified as principal factors affecting the degree of mental health, and this model accounted for 42.8 % of the dispersion. It was suggested that, most importantly one's own emotions must be recognized through verbalization so as to maintain and enhance positive emotions representing the degree of mental health.
