Emotional intelligence as a mediator in the relationship between problem-solving skills and conflict management: An investigation among healthcare professionals

The aim of this study is to examine the mediating role of emotional intelligence (EI) in the relationship between problem-solving skills and conflict-management styles among healthcare employees. The research was conducted with 270 participants working at Trakya University Training and Research Hospital using a descriptive–correlational design. Data were collected via a Personal Information Form, the Problem Solving Inventory (PSI), the Conflict Action Styles Scale (CASS), and the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire–Short Form (TEIQue-SF). The TEIQue-SF comprises four brief subdimensions: well-being (life satisfaction/optimism), self-control (emotion and impulse regulation), emotionality (perceiving/expressing emotions), and sociability (interpersonal influence/communication). Multiple regression and mediation models were employed in the analyses. The findings indicate that EI is a strong predictor of conflict styles: EI positively predicts facilitative and compromising styles, and negatively predicts the avoiding style. Specific to the healthcare context, EI also shows positive associations with forcing and confronting styles. Among PSI subdimensions, reflective and evaluative approaches increased collaborative styles, whereas hasty and over-confident approaches weakened them. Mediation analyses showed that EI is a partial mediator particularly on the compromising and facilitative paths; in avoidance, mediation was not observed despite EI's direct attenuating effect; in the forcing style, there was full mediation along the self-confident approach → forcing path. In demographic comparisons (p<.05), hastiness/avoidance was higher among younger and less-tenured groups, while EI and analytic tendencies increased with tenure. In conclusion, to manage conflict constructively in healthcare settings, it is critical to strengthen EI skills together with analytic/evaluative problem-solving strategies; by especially reducing avoidance and enhancing compromising/facilitative tendencies, EI supports the mediating-role hypothesis stated in the title.