The Mediating Role of Emotional Intelligence in the Job Satisfaction and Job Performance of Medical Secretaries: A...

Background/Objectives: Medical secretaries, who serve as patients' first point of contact and are frequently exposed to stress arising from illness, waiting, and the hospital environment, remain under-examined in health-workforce research. Previous studies have positioned emotional intelligence in different roles within job-attitude and performance models, including as an antecedent of job satisfaction. Because cross-sectional self-report data cannot establish temporal ordering or causal mediation, the present study examined whether emotional intelligence statistically accounts for part of the cross-sectional association between medical secretaries' job satisfaction and self-reported job performance. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with medical secretaries from two public hospitals in Bitlis Province, Türkiye (April-May 2025). Of 176 eligible employees invited, 134 complete questionnaires were analyzed (response rate: 76.1%). Emotional intelligence was assessed with the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale, job satisfaction with the five-item short form of the Brayfield-Rothe scale, and self-reported job performance with a four-item scale. Group comparisons, Pearson correlations, linear regression, a 10,000-resample bootstrap indirect-association analysis, a reverse-model sensitivity analysis, and a Harman single-factor diagnostic were performed. Results: Job satisfaction was positively associated with self-reported job performance (r = 0.275; p = 0.001) and emotional intelligence (r = 0.341; p < 0.001), while emotional intelligence showed a stronger association with performance (r = 0.539; p < 0.001). The conditional direct association of job satisfaction with performance was not statistically significant after emotional intelligence entered the model (β = 0.103; p = 0.187); the cross-sectional indirect association through emotional intelligence was 0.114 (95% bootstrap CI: 0.042-0.204). Explained variance increased from 7.6% to 30.0%, leaving 70.0% unexplained. In the reverse specification (emotional intelligence → job satisfaction → performance), the indirect association was not statistically supported (ab = 0.009; 95% bootstrap CI: -0.005 to 0.025). Harman's first unrotated component accounted for 38.7% of item variance. Conclusions: Emotional intelligence accounted statistically for a meaningful but incomplete portion of the job satisfaction-performance association in this sample. The results are compatible with the proposed indirect pathway but do not establish temporal order or causality. Replication using longitudinal designs, multiple data sources, objective performance indicators, and additional occupational factors such as emotional labor, burnout, workload, and organizational support is warranted.