Introduction: A comparative study to assess the emotional quotient (EQ) of staff nurses working in a private and a government hospital of New Delhi. The objectives of the study were: To assess the emotional quotient of staff nurses working in a government hospital; to assess the emotional quotient of staff nurses working in a private hospital and To compare the emotional quotient of staff nurses working in government and private hospitals.Method: A quantitative approach with a descriptive comparative survey design was adopted for the study. The study was conducted in Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi, and HAHC Hospital, New Delhi. The population of the study consisted of staff nurses working in a government hospital and a private hospital. 50 samples were selected from the private hospital and 50 from the government hospital by using convenient sampling technique to assess the emotional quotient. The tool used for data collection was rating scale to assess the emotional quotient.Results: The finding showed that the mean score of private hospital staff nurses was (63.34%) which was higher than mean score (55.94%) of government hospital staff nurses. The findings also revealed that in government hospital majority of staff nurses had average emotional quotient, i.e., 21(42%) while, 18(36%) had low emotional quotient and 11(22%) belonged to high emotional quotient category. Same were the findings in private hospital which showed that a majority of staff nurses had average emotional quotient, i.e., 23(46%), 18(36%) had high emotional quotient and 9(18%) had low emotional quotient.Conclusion: The finding of the present study suggested that emotional quotient was high in private hospital staff nurses as compared to government hospital staff nurses and majority of staff nurses in both the hospitals had average emotional quotient
