Emotional intelligence and health care are closely linked. Empathy as part of emotional intelligence is one of the important aspects of emotional intelligence. Nurse competencies should include high self-awareness, event assessment, and the ability to cope with one’s own feelings, all of which are elements of emotional intelligence and are an essential prerequisite for providing true empathy. Persistence of the nurse-patient relationship, as a key component of nursing work, makes nursing perception, understanding of the patient's emotions and the use of these emotions, in order to make patient care as effective as possible. Today, patient health care includes not only professional care, but also respect for the patient's goals, desires and decisions, and the fulfillment of his emotional, social and spiritual needs. The purpose of writing the paper is to explain and conceptually define the importance of emotions in health care, the role of emotional and psychosocial development, emotional intelligence with special reference to nursing.