Emotional intelligence and depression: analysis of their association in a sample of basic education students Inteligencia emocional y depresión: Análisis sobre su asociación en una muestra de estudiantes de educación básica

Abstract

In recent years there has been an increase in people suffering from depression, regardless of their sex and age group, as is the case of the child population. Given this situation, health professionals are interested in investigating other lines of study to address this problem; In this sense, emotional intelligence is a set of personal, emotional and social skills that help with adaptation, general well-being and preventing diseases related to mental health. Under this premise, the present study aimed to know if there was a relationship between childhood depression and emotional intelligence (EI) in primary school students. The study is quantitative, cross-sectional, comparative and correlational. 222 fifth and sixth grade primary school students participated, who answered the Lang & Tisher childhood depression questionnaire and the Vallés & Vallés emotional intelligence questionnaire. The results showed negative associations between depression and emotional intelligence (-0.196**) and with the subscales of: Affective responses (-0.154*), Social problems (-0.176**), Self-esteem (-0.230**) and Guilt (- 0.210). The sample was then organized into three groups according to the level of EI and with the one-way ANOVA statistically significant differences were observed in favor of the group with a high level of EI who showed lower mean estimates of depression. It is concluded that in this study there were associations between the variables and the information allows designing psychoeducational strategies to promote the emotional competencies of students.