Monalisa Saikia
Fellow, 2021-2022
Monalisa Saikia is a PhD scholar in the department of Fundamentals of Nursing at Manipal College of Nursing, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Karnataka, India. My dissertation focuses on developing a training program on emotional intelligence for nurses, where we also want to observe whether emotional intelligence influences nurses’ intrinsic motivation, self-compassion, and emotional labour, and vice-versa.
After pursuing my bachelor’s degree in nursing from Sikkim Manipal College of Nursing, Sikkim, India, in the year 2011, I worked as a staff nurse for a year. Psychiatry and mental health always fascinated me. After completing my masters in Psychiatric and mental health nursing from one of the reputed mental health institutions in India, LGB Regional Institute of Mental Health, Assam, in 2015, I worked in the same institution as a staff nurse for 2 years, working closely with patients with mental illness and their family.
Impact of Integrated Emotional Self Enhancement (IESE) Program on Emotional Intelligence, Intrinsic Motivation, Self–Compassion and Emotional Labour among staff nurses of a selected hospital at Mangalore: a quasi–experimental study
My research interests are in mental health, organizational psychology, and substance use & abuse. To build myself in the areas of my interest and to contribute towards research in the field of mental health and organizational psychology, I am now working on a project which focuses on staff nurses’ emotional intelligence. In these times of uncertainty, and huge amount of stress the nurses face, my research team and I believe, that our project and program will work as a window to the emotional and mental health needs of nurses.
Nurses work in an environment that is always emotionally charged. They are in constant contact with human pain, loss and suffering. In such a stressful environment, nurses must provide a holistic care to their patients which is compassionate, by sometimes compromising their own mental and emotional state and need. A systematic review done as a part of this study shows that although there are previous studies that have explored effects of positive psychology on nurses’ overall as well as emotional wellbeing, there are very few studies that have employed an intervention aimed at enhancing nurses’ emotional well-being, more specifically, nurses’ emotional intelligence.
Objectives: 1) to develop a training program aiming at enhancing nurses’ emotional wellbeing; 2) to observe the effect of the training program on nurses’ level of emotional intelligence, intrinsic motivation, self-compassion, and emotional labour; 3) to observe any relationship between the study variables.
Method: a quasi-experimental, one group design was used in this study. Data were collected from the study participants between January 2021 to May 2022. A total of 38 nurses completed the study and provided their data at all time points. Data were also collected from nurse supervisors and patients to assess their perception of nursing care before and after the intervention program.
Monalisa presented the outcomes of her research project to the t2pRI Board of Directors in August 2022.
Learn more about Monalisa’s research project outcomes here.
Recent publication:
“Thirty years of emotional intelligence: A scoping review of emotional intelligence training programme among nurses,” published 29 September 2023 in International Journal of Mental Health Nursing.