Emotional intelligence as a noncognitive factor in student registered nurse anesthetists.

Current nurse anesthesia program admissions requirements usually focus on high grade point averages, Graduate Record Examination scores, number of years of acute care experience, and a personal interview to assist in predicting those who will succeed in these intensive academic and clinical programs. Some people believe these criteria may not be sufficient in predicting success and have suggested that the use of noncognitive criteria such as emotional intelligence measurements may be helpful. The purpose of this cross-sectional correlational study was to explore the relationship between emotional intelligence and academic factors of student registered nurse anesthetists at 3 points in a program--matriculation, at 1 year of study, and in the last semester of study--and the relationship of these to clinical scores and National Certification Examination scores. An ex post facto cross-sectional study design was used to gather data at 3 critical times in nurse anesthesia programs to explore the relationships between emotional intelligence scores, preadmission demographics, clinical scores, and National Certification Examination scores. The online Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test instrument provided 15 individual emotional intelligence scores for each subject. The statistical relationship between variables was examined.