( 5 ) the general concept of emotional intelligence is partly rooted in thorndike s ( 6 ) theory of  social intelligence  and gardner s ( 7 ) theory on multiple intelligences . research on emotional intelligence began primarily in the early 1990 s ( 8) . the topic of emotional intelligence has appeared in goleman s ( 9 )  best - selling  book . according to goleman , being able to monitor and regulate one s own feelings , understand the feeling of others and use that  emotion  or  feeling  knowledge to guide thoughts and actions is known as emotional intelligence . the theory of emotional intelligence proposed by salovey and mayer ( 8) provides a new framework to investigate social and emotional adaptation . emotional skills can be developed through learning and experience and posit four central abilities : perceiving , using , understanding , and managing emotions . there has been an increasing interest regarding the association between emotional intelligence and general and mental health ( 1 ) . higher emotional intelligence has been found to be correlated to lower psychological distress ( 10 ) , moderately related to lower depression ( 11 , 12 ) and strongly to lower anxiety ( 12 ) . similarly , high emotional intelligence has been moderately related to lower levels of negative affect or depression ( 2 ) , mildly related to lower levels of anger , sadness , fear , jealousy , and sham , ( 13 ) and strongly related to lower general health ( 14 , 15 ) . as a result , individuals with high emotional intelligence possibly are being more able to resist general and mental health problems . in iran , there is increasing acceptance of emotional intelligence concept and its application in educational practice . fata et al . ( 16 ) found that emotional intelligence is a significant predictor of general mental health and emotional intelligence enhancement . especially , adaptability skills lead to increased mental health banihashemian and moazzen ( 17 ) found a positive relationship between general health and emotional intelligence . ( 18 ) also , concluded that emotional intelligence is reversely related to symptoms of anxiety and is capable of predicting anxiety symptoms . the results of some researches have suggested that ethnic , geographic , cultural , and other demographic factors may play an important role in both emotional intelligences and mental or general health ( 4 , 6 , 10 , 14 , 16 ) . thus , it is necessary that above - mentioned variables in age , gender , cultural , ethnic , regional , and other groups are studied separately . considering this point , the purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between emotional intelligence and mental health among students in the university of guilan , north of iran , which may have differences in comparison with other populations . this cross - sectional study was performed on all undergraduate students of guilan university during 2010 - 2011 . the subjects age range was from 19 to 24 ( mean  standard deviation = 21.40  2.70 ) . schutte self - report emotional intelligence test ( sseit ) and general health questionnaire ( ghq-28 ) were used . schutte self - report emotional intelligence test comprises 33 self - report statements designed to measure the components of emotional intelligence proposed in salovey and meyer s original theory of emotional intelligence ( 8) . participants were asked to rate on a likert scale the extent to which they strongly disagreed ( 1 ) or strongly agreed ( 5 ) with each statement such as  i have control over my emotions  or the instrument measures emotional management ( in self and others ) , emotional perception and emotional utilization ( 19 ) . the sseit has an acceptable level of internal consistency (  = 0.87 ) and test - retest reliability ( r = 0.78 ) ( 20 ) . furthermore , williams et al . ( 21 ) reported good internal reliability (  = 0.86 ) . the test - retest reliability and cronbach s  of the persian version of ssrei was 0.77 and 0.85 , respectively ( p < 0.001 ) . the correlation coefficient of emotional intelligence scale with  the satisfaction with life scale , depression anxiety stress scales  and  trait meta - mood scale  were also found to be 0.48 , -0.46 and 0.49 respectively , which were also significant ( p < 0.001 ) ( 22 ) . moreover , ghq-28 is a 28-items measure that has been widely used since 1978 after being introduced by goldberg and williams ( 23 ) . this questionnaire asks respondents to indicate how their health has been over the last few weeks on 4-point scales ( better than usual = 0 , much worse than usual = 3 ) . cronbach s alpha coefficients for somatization , anxiety , social dysfunction and depression were 0.67 , 0.71 , 0.59 , and 0.75 , respectively ( 24 ) . in iran , reliability and validity of ghq-28 researches in isfahan , iran , criterion validity , chronbach s alpha and split reliability coefficient were found to be 0.78 , 0.97 , and 0.90 , respectively ( 25 ) . in the present study , 136 subjects participated and completed the questionnaires . from this group , 74 cases were female and 62 were male . the result of t - test showed that there was no significant statistical difference in age between two subgroups ( male and female ) . the mean and standard deviation of all subjects in sseit were 21.40 and 2.70 , respectively . similarly , the correlations between emotional intelligence and somatization , anxiety , social dysfunction , and depression scales were 0.24 , -0.25 , -0.37 , and -0.27 , respectively . table 1 shows correlations between scales of general health and subscales of emotional intelligence . according to the table 1 , emotional management is not correlated with scales of general health . in contrast , emotional perception is mildly , and emotional utilization is moderately correlated with scales of general health . to determine whether the emotional intelligence scales significantly predicted variance of general health , multiple regression results showed emotional management is not correlated with scales of general health . in contrast , emotional perception is mildly , and emotional utilization is moderately correlated with scales of general health . this study examined the relationship between three emotional competencies ( management , perception , and utilization ) and four scales of general health ( somatization , anxiety , social dysfunction and depression ) among the guilan university students . for example , a meta - analysis of 44 effect sizes based on the response of 7898 participants found that higher emotional intelligence was significantly associated with better health ( 14 ) . the adaptive perception of emotion , use of emotion to enhance cognition , understanding of emotion and regulation of emotion may contribute to mental and physical health in various ways . . pointed out that level of emotional intelligence may have implications for both mental disorders in which emotion plays a central role as well as disorders that relate to non - emotional features of emotional intelligence . mood and anxiety disorders are examples of disorders that have maladaptive emotional state of core symptoms ( 26 ) . the better perception , understanding and management of emotion of those with higher emotional intelligence may prevent the development of maladaptive emotional states associated with mood and anxiety disorders . research has shown those with higher emotional intelligence tend to have more positive mood typically and are better able to repair the mood after a negative mood induction ( 27 ) . in another study , individuals with high levels of emotional intelligence have several advantages over individuals with low emotional intelligence levels . these advantages include emotional self - awareness , stress management , problem - solving , mood regulation , empathy and the ability to prevent distress from swamping one s ability to think clearly . these qualities are highly desirable and important for successful living in the world ( 28 ) . the evidence suggests that the emotional perception and emotional utilization are predictors of general health . this result corresponds to the findings of many studies ( 1 , 11 , 16 - 18 ) . the ability to regulate emotions is one of the higher more psychologically integrated processes and concerns whether the individual is trying to improve a bad mood , dampen a good mood , or leave the mood alone ( 28 ) . further , those with higher emotional intelligence might be better able to follow through on commitments to health behavior and show better medical compliance ( 14 ) . in summary , the results of this study revealed that emotional intelligence can serve as a protective and supportive function for general health and its components . first , the collection of data in this study relied on university students , self - report . second , the current study did not control the effect of any other potential predictors ( e.g. personality variables ) of general health . third , because of the small sample of this research , the current results may not be generalized to other students . future research in this area with larger sample sizes and a wider battery of measures is needed in order to substantiate the contribution of emotional intelligence to general health . finally , the design of this study is cross - sectional and can not establish a causal relationship . we hope the results of this study provide a basis for the studies aimed to determine the causal relationship between emotional intelligence and general health in iranian university students .
background : particularly , this concept has used for examination of its empact on health of various people groups . given the importance of students ' health , this study investigated the relationship between emotional intelligence and general health.objectives:the concept of emotional intelligence has attracted growing interest from researchers working in various fields . 
 this study investigated the relationship between emotional intelligence and general health.materials and methods : in this cross - sectional study , 136 students were selected from the university of guilan , north of iran , using simple random sampling . 
 the subjects completed the schutte self - report emotional intelligence test and general health questionnaire.results:the results showed a significant correlation between emotional intelligence and general health . 
 also , results indicated that emotional perception and emotional utilization are predictors of general health.conclusions:the findings reflect that emotional intelligence can play an important role in general health .