Journal of Interprofessional Care
ISSN: 1356-1820 (Print) 1469-9567 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ijic20
Interprofessional social and emotional intelligence skills training: study findings and key lessons Loma Kaye Flowers, Ruth Thomas-Squance, Jo Ellen Brainin-Rodriguez & Antronette K. Yancey To cite this article: Loma Kaye Flowers, Ruth Thomas-Squance, Jo Ellen Brainin-Rodriguez & Antronette K. Yancey (2014) Interprofessional social and emotional intelligence skills training: study findings and key lessons, Journal of Interprofessional Care, 28:2, 157-159, DOI: 10.3109/13561820.2013.847407 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.3109/13561820.2013.847407
Published online: 28 Oct 2013.
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http://informahealthcare.com/jic ISSN: 1356-1820 (print), 1469-9567 (electronic) J Interprof Care, 2014; 28(2): 157–159 ! 2014 Informa UK Ltd. DOI: 10.3109/13561820.2013.847407
SHORT REPORT
Interprofessional social and emotional intelligence skills training: study findings and key lessons Loma Kaye Flowers1, Ruth Thomas-Squance1, Jo Ellen Brainin-Rodriguez2 and Antronette K. Yancey3 1
Equilibrium Dynamics, San Francisco, CA, USA, 2Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, Health Sciences, San Francisco, CA, USA, and 3Department of Health Policy and Management, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Abstract
Keywords
Frequently changing demands in health care systems have focused attention on the need for emotional competence (EC) – social and emotional intelligence skills, to adapt efficiently, responsively and productively. This paper reports on findings from a workshop that introduced practical EC skills to nearly 1000 participants in education, medicine, mental health and substance abuse counseling. The holistic EC presentations were designed to teach concepts and principles providing each participant with the opportunity for individualized learning. Ninety percent of the participants rated these presentations as valuable and useful. Following this positive response, the approach was adapted to train health professionals serving diverse populations. This report shares our experience teaching various professionals and describes preliminarily testing of the adapted EC training program on a small group of health professionals, whose responsibilities included teamwork, program design, teaching clients and patients EC basics to support healthy practices and self-care. Their positive response supports the need for expanded study and further investigation.
Collaborative competence, emotional competence, emotional intelligence skills, emotional labor, feeling management, interprofessional education, team effectiveness
In the USA, 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has brought rapidly evolving changes to health care systems that require adaptability and flexibility in all health care professionals. This increases the need to both understand the impact of the determinants, as well as expand interprofessional approaches working toward policy and systems change with community partners (Beunza, 2013). Social and emotional intelligence skills (Gardner, 1983) – known in aggregate as emotional competence (EC) – facilitate the management of such changes. We define EC as the ability to process and integrate emotions with both clear thinking and good judgment before action, including communications. Businesses and schools have incorporated numerous programs designed to teach particular EC skills (Goleman, 1998) though often related to specific goals without a coherent comprehensive curriculum. Research suggests EC enhances an individual’s ability to direct actions toward constructive and effective outcomes, minimizing destructive behaviors through improved decision-making and maximizing positive application of feelings (Seo & Barrett, 2007). Despite this evidence, the health care field has yet to formally integrate EC training into all aspects of practice. Our curriculum enables learners to integrate new concepts, principles and insights that support constructive responses to everyday challenges, including changing job responsibilities. Our systematic approach covering both structural and functional aspects of EC enables learners to extrapolate their knowledge to both unfamiliar and unexpected situations not specifically covered Correspondence: Ruth Thomas-Squance, Equilibrium Dynamics, P.O. Box 27173, San Francisco, CA 94127, USA. E-mail: exec@eqdynamics. org
Received 15 February 2013 Revised 11 August 2013 Accepted 16 September 2013 Published online 28 October 2013
by the course. Additionally, these insights could maximize effective program development, responses to treatment resistance and compliance with health maintenance recommendations. Moreover, our program aimed to equip professionals to provide training in order to raise the level of EC in the communities they serve. Ideally, this could initiate a positive cycle of increasing emotional and health literacy. This paper describes data gathered from our experience teaching an EC curriculum,1 adapted for health care professionals. Method of emotional competence education The original Equilibrium Dynamics2 (EQD) curriculum was chosen for this project for two reasons. First it was developed experientially to offer trainees the greatest adaptability to a range of cultures, socioeconomic levels, individual circumstances and professional orientations (Thomas-Squance, Goldstone, Martinez, & Flowers, 2011). This was achieved by teaching fundamental concepts and principles – rather than rules – for practical social and emotional intelligence skills. Second, it is a uniquely holistic curriculum covering the entire scope of EC rather than commonly selected aspects such as resilience, profitability, professionalism or conflict resolution. This breadth provides access to the full range of EC skills. The practicality of the training is based on an extension of the traditional structural division of emotional intelligence [intrapersonal and interpersonal] into three operational dimensions of EC: instant response (first), considered response (second) and developmental response (third). The functional conceptualization
20 14
Introduction
History
1
Details about the curriculum available at: www.EQDynamics.org Equilibrium Dynamics (EQD) is a California 501(c)3 organization.
2
158
L. K. Flowers et al.
J Interprof Care, 2014; 28(2): 157–159
reflects a deliberate shift away from a static viewpoint, emphasizing incorporation of both long- and short-term perspectives that include emotional needs and good judgment in order to plan and achieve practical, effective outcomes. The three EC dimensions operate simultaneously and therefore require multi-tasking. The Instant Response (first) operates continuously whenever an immediate response is required. It is the coordination of thinking, feeling and good judgment before action. For example, choosing a meal for wellness requires thinking (healthy options, price, availability, portion size, balanced nutrients, etc.), feeling (your taste preferences, hunger, guilt, etc.) and judgment (your weight, calories, blood sugar, cholesterol, allergies, etc.) before you select and eat. Related issues are discussed in programs dealing with other impulsive behaviors, e.g. violence prevention. The Considered Response (second) has a 10-step protocol, beginning with a pause, to analyze an event, then identify and process feelings. It moves on to a balanced attention to short- and long-term planning (i.e. foreseeable future) for the ‘‘Best Result for Now and Later’’, which defines the focus of action. This Considered Response is useful in anticipation of situations when the Instant Response is likely to fail and is necessary for complex events (e.g. planning an agenda for an interprofessional meeting to resolve a territorial conflict). The Developmental Response (third) is lifelong personal and professional growth presented as a five-step cyclical progression: self-awareness, self-development, relationships, self-responsibility, and reflection and feelings. This process provides the tools to continually develop EC skills by incorporating new knowledge from subsequent experiences and training into this framework.
Methods The original EQD education and training for EC has been presented in single programs as short as 1 h and in longer
workshops (from 2–3 to 64 h) over a period of four years. During all the training sessions participants practised every day emotional literacy and journaling the facts and feelings on their minds as they begin the workshop (Ullrich & Lutendorf, 2002). Instructors demonstrated how to identify and describe common EC dynamics and name, sort and face their feelings, distinguishing Instant from Considered and Developmental Responses. Participants also practised orally communicating complex feelings fluently and appropriately. This skill development drives further self-development in various areas initially self-awareness, feelings and reflection. In more extended trainings, development included decisions, relationships and self-responsibility. For evaluation participants were routinely asked to complete an evaluation sheet at the end of each session. Retrospective EC self-assessments were completed 12 months after course completion.
Results Over the last 10 years, the EQD curriculum was presented to nearly 1000 participants in health care and education. Our goal was to familiarize them with the curriculum for their own professional and/or personal use. As indicated in Table I, the majority of these participants (n ¼ 817) who completed the evaluations before 2010, 90% stated they ‘‘agree’’ or ‘‘strongly agree’’ that the program was valuable to them and 91% stated they ‘‘agreed’’ or ‘‘strongly agreed’’ that they learned something they can use. In addition, 88% replied ‘‘yes’’ the curriculum would ‘‘help them meet their responsibilities’’. It is also interesting to note that previous participants referred most of the participants. The preliminary trial of the in-depth health care-specific EC training involved various health professionals: health education (maternal/child), mentoring (for health professions), nutrition, psychiatry and public health. The course was designed to not only teach learners to incorporate the relevant knowledge, skills and
Table I. Participant evaluation scores during training and at 12-month follow-up.
Participant evaluation of short EC training courses for personal professional skills High school students Post-bacs (medical) College students Medical students Faculty: HS, college, med school Parents Adults:general public Health care providers: counselors, MFTs, MSWs, PAs, primary care MDs, psychiatrists, psychologists, etc. Total Participant evaluation of in-depth health care-specific EC training for trainers Health education, mentoring, nutrition, psychiatry and PH 12-month follow-up: retrospective self-assessment of EC skills Self-awareness skills Self-development skills Relationship skills Reflection and feelings Instant response skills (thinking, feeling judgment and action) Considered response skills (feeling management, best result for now and later)
N
Overall the activity was valuable (%)
I learned something I can use (%)
Is what you learned likely to help you meet your responsibilities? (%)
97 114 43 108 81 151 139 84
91 93 95 84 84 95 88 91
92 96 93 89 83 96 89 91
– 97 75 77 86 95 93 87
824
90
91
88
7
100
100
86
I undervalued my skills
My self-assessment was accurate
I over-rated my skills
– 14 – – 14 –
57 72 57 28 57 57
43 14 43 72 28 43
Evaluations of health care-specific EC training were compared with that of previous teaching experiences. Data show percentage who ‘‘agree’’ or ‘‘strongly agree’’ or replied ‘‘yes’’ to question. N ¼ completed evaluations. HS, High school; MFT, marriage and family therapist; MSW, masters of social work.
DOI: 10.3109/13561820.2013.847407
strategies into their professional or personal lives but also to train them to lead introductory trainings in the same curriculum in their various professional settings. The learners evaluated the training experience very positively. A post training self-assessment (12 months later) of the participants (n ¼ 7), indicated they perceived an increase in their EC skills. These findings are consistent with our prior experience presenting the original EQD curriculum (Table I).
Discussion The role of emotions in addressing critical health issues has been acknowledged – often obliquely – but not yet extensively researched. Our continual referrals by participants imply a recognized need for EC education in health fields among diverse professionals, students, workers and educators. The large number of satisfaction scores supports the need for further research on application of the curriculum to a formal training of health professionals. However, the small number of the health care-specific EC trainees necessitates caution in interpreting findings, but the consistency of the data is promising. As indicated in this study, a year following the training, participants judged that in retrospect, they had originally overestimated their pre-training EC skills level. We suggest that this shift indicates an increased self-awareness and understanding of the scope and capacity of EC. The biggest exception to this is self-development which is not surprising in a self-referred group. This implies a greater need for EC training than is generally recognized. Furthermore, the increasing availability of emotional intelligence skills training in medical centers suggests greater receptivity and awareness of the need. However, the available trainings still tend to be focused on the parts rather than the whole, which can limit their subsequent applicability. Our hope is that a new generation of EC-trained leaders (Goleman & Boyatzis, 2008) could make significant contributions to the effectiveness of complex health systems through smooth interprofessional collaborations creating policy and systems changes (e.g. more rapid incorporation of evidence-based practices). This could be especially important in fields that have
Social and emotional intelligence skills training
159
traditionally restricted themselves to ‘‘facts’’, deliberately excluding emotions.
Concluding comments There is a self-expressed need for social and emotional intelligence skills across multiple specialties and levels of training in health fields. Our positive experiences suggest EC can be effectively taught in structured, short-term programs to groups. Participants exposed to EQD training find it useful in carrying out their professional responsibilities. In addition, since the EQD training program is designed to train and equip diverse professionals to both apply and teach others these skills, this is a potentially inexpensive intervention. These conclusions are worthy of further study.
Declaration of interest The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The authors alone were responsible for the content and writing of this paper. This project was funded by EQD and the generous financial support of the UCLA-Kaiser Center for Health Equity. The Public Health Institute, Oakland, CA was the fiscal agency and provided administrative support.
References Beunza, J.J. (2013). Conflict resolution techniques applied to interprofessional collaborative practice. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 27, 110–112. doi:10.3109/13561820.2012.725280. Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books. Goleman, D. (1998). Working with emotional intelligence (1st ed.). New York: Random House. Goleman, D., & Boyatzis, R. (2008). Social intelligence and the biology of leadership. Harvard Business Review, 86, 74–81, 136. Seo, M.G., & Barrett, L.F. (2007). Being emotional during decision making – good or bad? An empirical investigation. Journal of Academic Management, 50, 923–940. Thomas-Squance, G.R., Goldstone, R., Martinez, A., & Flowers, L.K. (2011). Mentoring of students from under-represented groups using emotionally competent processes and content. Medical Education, 45, 1153–1154. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2923.2011.04133.x. Ullrich, P.M., & Lutendorf, S.K. (2002). Journaling about stressful events: Effects of cognitive processing and emotional expression. Annals of Behavioural Medicine, 24, 244–250.
ISSN: 1356-1820 (Print) 1469-9567 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ijic20
Interprofessional social and emotional intelligence skills training: study findings and key lessons Loma Kaye Flowers, Ruth Thomas-Squance, Jo Ellen Brainin-Rodriguez & Antronette K. Yancey To cite this article: Loma Kaye Flowers, Ruth Thomas-Squance, Jo Ellen Brainin-Rodriguez & Antronette K. Yancey (2014) Interprofessional social and emotional intelligence skills training: study findings and key lessons, Journal of Interprofessional Care, 28:2, 157-159, DOI: 10.3109/13561820.2013.847407 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.3109/13561820.2013.847407
Published online: 28 Oct 2013.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 567
View related articles
View Crossmark data
Citing articles: 6 View citing articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ijic20
http://informahealthcare.com/jic ISSN: 1356-1820 (print), 1469-9567 (electronic) J Interprof Care, 2014; 28(2): 157–159 ! 2014 Informa UK Ltd. DOI: 10.3109/13561820.2013.847407
SHORT REPORT
Interprofessional social and emotional intelligence skills training: study findings and key lessons Loma Kaye Flowers1, Ruth Thomas-Squance1, Jo Ellen Brainin-Rodriguez2 and Antronette K. Yancey3 1
Equilibrium Dynamics, San Francisco, CA, USA, 2Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, Health Sciences, San Francisco, CA, USA, and 3Department of Health Policy and Management, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Abstract
Keywords
Frequently changing demands in health care systems have focused attention on the need for emotional competence (EC) – social and emotional intelligence skills, to adapt efficiently, responsively and productively. This paper reports on findings from a workshop that introduced practical EC skills to nearly 1000 participants in education, medicine, mental health and substance abuse counseling. The holistic EC presentations were designed to teach concepts and principles providing each participant with the opportunity for individualized learning. Ninety percent of the participants rated these presentations as valuable and useful. Following this positive response, the approach was adapted to train health professionals serving diverse populations. This report shares our experience teaching various professionals and describes preliminarily testing of the adapted EC training program on a small group of health professionals, whose responsibilities included teamwork, program design, teaching clients and patients EC basics to support healthy practices and self-care. Their positive response supports the need for expanded study and further investigation.
Collaborative competence, emotional competence, emotional intelligence skills, emotional labor, feeling management, interprofessional education, team effectiveness
In the USA, 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has brought rapidly evolving changes to health care systems that require adaptability and flexibility in all health care professionals. This increases the need to both understand the impact of the determinants, as well as expand interprofessional approaches working toward policy and systems change with community partners (Beunza, 2013). Social and emotional intelligence skills (Gardner, 1983) – known in aggregate as emotional competence (EC) – facilitate the management of such changes. We define EC as the ability to process and integrate emotions with both clear thinking and good judgment before action, including communications. Businesses and schools have incorporated numerous programs designed to teach particular EC skills (Goleman, 1998) though often related to specific goals without a coherent comprehensive curriculum. Research suggests EC enhances an individual’s ability to direct actions toward constructive and effective outcomes, minimizing destructive behaviors through improved decision-making and maximizing positive application of feelings (Seo & Barrett, 2007). Despite this evidence, the health care field has yet to formally integrate EC training into all aspects of practice. Our curriculum enables learners to integrate new concepts, principles and insights that support constructive responses to everyday challenges, including changing job responsibilities. Our systematic approach covering both structural and functional aspects of EC enables learners to extrapolate their knowledge to both unfamiliar and unexpected situations not specifically covered Correspondence: Ruth Thomas-Squance, Equilibrium Dynamics, P.O. Box 27173, San Francisco, CA 94127, USA. E-mail: exec@eqdynamics. org
Received 15 February 2013 Revised 11 August 2013 Accepted 16 September 2013 Published online 28 October 2013
by the course. Additionally, these insights could maximize effective program development, responses to treatment resistance and compliance with health maintenance recommendations. Moreover, our program aimed to equip professionals to provide training in order to raise the level of EC in the communities they serve. Ideally, this could initiate a positive cycle of increasing emotional and health literacy. This paper describes data gathered from our experience teaching an EC curriculum,1 adapted for health care professionals. Method of emotional competence education The original Equilibrium Dynamics2 (EQD) curriculum was chosen for this project for two reasons. First it was developed experientially to offer trainees the greatest adaptability to a range of cultures, socioeconomic levels, individual circumstances and professional orientations (Thomas-Squance, Goldstone, Martinez, & Flowers, 2011). This was achieved by teaching fundamental concepts and principles – rather than rules – for practical social and emotional intelligence skills. Second, it is a uniquely holistic curriculum covering the entire scope of EC rather than commonly selected aspects such as resilience, profitability, professionalism or conflict resolution. This breadth provides access to the full range of EC skills. The practicality of the training is based on an extension of the traditional structural division of emotional intelligence [intrapersonal and interpersonal] into three operational dimensions of EC: instant response (first), considered response (second) and developmental response (third). The functional conceptualization
20 14
Introduction
History
1
Details about the curriculum available at: www.EQDynamics.org Equilibrium Dynamics (EQD) is a California 501(c)3 organization.
2
158
L. K. Flowers et al.
J Interprof Care, 2014; 28(2): 157–159
reflects a deliberate shift away from a static viewpoint, emphasizing incorporation of both long- and short-term perspectives that include emotional needs and good judgment in order to plan and achieve practical, effective outcomes. The three EC dimensions operate simultaneously and therefore require multi-tasking. The Instant Response (first) operates continuously whenever an immediate response is required. It is the coordination of thinking, feeling and good judgment before action. For example, choosing a meal for wellness requires thinking (healthy options, price, availability, portion size, balanced nutrients, etc.), feeling (your taste preferences, hunger, guilt, etc.) and judgment (your weight, calories, blood sugar, cholesterol, allergies, etc.) before you select and eat. Related issues are discussed in programs dealing with other impulsive behaviors, e.g. violence prevention. The Considered Response (second) has a 10-step protocol, beginning with a pause, to analyze an event, then identify and process feelings. It moves on to a balanced attention to short- and long-term planning (i.e. foreseeable future) for the ‘‘Best Result for Now and Later’’, which defines the focus of action. This Considered Response is useful in anticipation of situations when the Instant Response is likely to fail and is necessary for complex events (e.g. planning an agenda for an interprofessional meeting to resolve a territorial conflict). The Developmental Response (third) is lifelong personal and professional growth presented as a five-step cyclical progression: self-awareness, self-development, relationships, self-responsibility, and reflection and feelings. This process provides the tools to continually develop EC skills by incorporating new knowledge from subsequent experiences and training into this framework.
Methods The original EQD education and training for EC has been presented in single programs as short as 1 h and in longer
workshops (from 2–3 to 64 h) over a period of four years. During all the training sessions participants practised every day emotional literacy and journaling the facts and feelings on their minds as they begin the workshop (Ullrich & Lutendorf, 2002). Instructors demonstrated how to identify and describe common EC dynamics and name, sort and face their feelings, distinguishing Instant from Considered and Developmental Responses. Participants also practised orally communicating complex feelings fluently and appropriately. This skill development drives further self-development in various areas initially self-awareness, feelings and reflection. In more extended trainings, development included decisions, relationships and self-responsibility. For evaluation participants were routinely asked to complete an evaluation sheet at the end of each session. Retrospective EC self-assessments were completed 12 months after course completion.
Results Over the last 10 years, the EQD curriculum was presented to nearly 1000 participants in health care and education. Our goal was to familiarize them with the curriculum for their own professional and/or personal use. As indicated in Table I, the majority of these participants (n ¼ 817) who completed the evaluations before 2010, 90% stated they ‘‘agree’’ or ‘‘strongly agree’’ that the program was valuable to them and 91% stated they ‘‘agreed’’ or ‘‘strongly agreed’’ that they learned something they can use. In addition, 88% replied ‘‘yes’’ the curriculum would ‘‘help them meet their responsibilities’’. It is also interesting to note that previous participants referred most of the participants. The preliminary trial of the in-depth health care-specific EC training involved various health professionals: health education (maternal/child), mentoring (for health professions), nutrition, psychiatry and public health. The course was designed to not only teach learners to incorporate the relevant knowledge, skills and
Table I. Participant evaluation scores during training and at 12-month follow-up.
Participant evaluation of short EC training courses for personal professional skills High school students Post-bacs (medical) College students Medical students Faculty: HS, college, med school Parents Adults:general public Health care providers: counselors, MFTs, MSWs, PAs, primary care MDs, psychiatrists, psychologists, etc. Total Participant evaluation of in-depth health care-specific EC training for trainers Health education, mentoring, nutrition, psychiatry and PH 12-month follow-up: retrospective self-assessment of EC skills Self-awareness skills Self-development skills Relationship skills Reflection and feelings Instant response skills (thinking, feeling judgment and action) Considered response skills (feeling management, best result for now and later)
N
Overall the activity was valuable (%)
I learned something I can use (%)
Is what you learned likely to help you meet your responsibilities? (%)
97 114 43 108 81 151 139 84
91 93 95 84 84 95 88 91
92 96 93 89 83 96 89 91
– 97 75 77 86 95 93 87
824
90
91
88
7
100
100
86
I undervalued my skills
My self-assessment was accurate
I over-rated my skills
– 14 – – 14 –
57 72 57 28 57 57
43 14 43 72 28 43
Evaluations of health care-specific EC training were compared with that of previous teaching experiences. Data show percentage who ‘‘agree’’ or ‘‘strongly agree’’ or replied ‘‘yes’’ to question. N ¼ completed evaluations. HS, High school; MFT, marriage and family therapist; MSW, masters of social work.
DOI: 10.3109/13561820.2013.847407
strategies into their professional or personal lives but also to train them to lead introductory trainings in the same curriculum in their various professional settings. The learners evaluated the training experience very positively. A post training self-assessment (12 months later) of the participants (n ¼ 7), indicated they perceived an increase in their EC skills. These findings are consistent with our prior experience presenting the original EQD curriculum (Table I).
Discussion The role of emotions in addressing critical health issues has been acknowledged – often obliquely – but not yet extensively researched. Our continual referrals by participants imply a recognized need for EC education in health fields among diverse professionals, students, workers and educators. The large number of satisfaction scores supports the need for further research on application of the curriculum to a formal training of health professionals. However, the small number of the health care-specific EC trainees necessitates caution in interpreting findings, but the consistency of the data is promising. As indicated in this study, a year following the training, participants judged that in retrospect, they had originally overestimated their pre-training EC skills level. We suggest that this shift indicates an increased self-awareness and understanding of the scope and capacity of EC. The biggest exception to this is self-development which is not surprising in a self-referred group. This implies a greater need for EC training than is generally recognized. Furthermore, the increasing availability of emotional intelligence skills training in medical centers suggests greater receptivity and awareness of the need. However, the available trainings still tend to be focused on the parts rather than the whole, which can limit their subsequent applicability. Our hope is that a new generation of EC-trained leaders (Goleman & Boyatzis, 2008) could make significant contributions to the effectiveness of complex health systems through smooth interprofessional collaborations creating policy and systems changes (e.g. more rapid incorporation of evidence-based practices). This could be especially important in fields that have
Social and emotional intelligence skills training
159
traditionally restricted themselves to ‘‘facts’’, deliberately excluding emotions.
Concluding comments There is a self-expressed need for social and emotional intelligence skills across multiple specialties and levels of training in health fields. Our positive experiences suggest EC can be effectively taught in structured, short-term programs to groups. Participants exposed to EQD training find it useful in carrying out their professional responsibilities. In addition, since the EQD training program is designed to train and equip diverse professionals to both apply and teach others these skills, this is a potentially inexpensive intervention. These conclusions are worthy of further study.
Declaration of interest The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The authors alone were responsible for the content and writing of this paper. This project was funded by EQD and the generous financial support of the UCLA-Kaiser Center for Health Equity. The Public Health Institute, Oakland, CA was the fiscal agency and provided administrative support.
References Beunza, J.J. (2013). Conflict resolution techniques applied to interprofessional collaborative practice. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 27, 110–112. doi:10.3109/13561820.2012.725280. Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books. Goleman, D. (1998). Working with emotional intelligence (1st ed.). New York: Random House. Goleman, D., & Boyatzis, R. (2008). Social intelligence and the biology of leadership. Harvard Business Review, 86, 74–81, 136. Seo, M.G., & Barrett, L.F. (2007). Being emotional during decision making – good or bad? An empirical investigation. Journal of Academic Management, 50, 923–940. Thomas-Squance, G.R., Goldstone, R., Martinez, A., & Flowers, L.K. (2011). Mentoring of students from under-represented groups using emotionally competent processes and content. Medical Education, 45, 1153–1154. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2923.2011.04133.x. Ullrich, P.M., & Lutendorf, S.K. (2002). Journaling about stressful events: Effects of cognitive processing and emotional expression. Annals of Behavioural Medicine, 24, 244–250.
