الفهرس 
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Abstract
Emotional intelligence is a term used to describe the ability of an individual to recognize their own and other people’s emotions, to discriminate between different feelings and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behaviour (Coleman and Andrew 2008). There are several models of emotional intelligence; the trait model is one of those which was developed by Konstantin Vasily Petrides in 2001. It ”encompasses behavioural dispositions and self-perceived abilities and is measured through self-report” (Petrides et al., 2001).
The topic of emotional intelligence has generated a great deal of interest in both researchers and mental health professionals as it offers a new perspective in the study of emotions and disorders of emotion. It is now acknowledged that, when managed properly, emotions provide essential information for daily problem solving. On the other hand, deficits in emotional intelligence are directly linked to worsening the prognosis of different psychiatric disorders.
from the perspective, the intelligent use of emotions is considered essential for psychological adaptation (Mayer & Salovey, 1997; Salovey et al., 1999).
Research has explored the relation between emotional intelligence and clinical disorders as depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder, compulsive gambling, sex offending, personality disorders and most recently attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children.
The application of emotional intelligence for understanding mental illnesses has obviously faced validity. Emotional disturbances are a fundamental aspect of most clinical disorders. For example, flat affect and anhedonia in schizophrenia; emotional lability and severe alterations in mood in bipolar disorder (Stough et al., 2009).
Although it well established through research that there is a strong relation between emotional intelligence and different psychiatric disorders, the information we have on the emotional intelligence in the offspring of patients who have psychiatric disorders is very scarce. Thus, we have chosen to study the trait emotional intelligence in a sample of children whose parents suffer from schizophrenia.
Offspring of schizophrenia were considered high risk children. They were classified within criteria of “At risk mental states”, the presence of family history of schizophrenia makes offspring liable to develop disorder 3 times more their healthy peers.
Schizophrenia is major mental illness, already proven to be heritable, and any method could enhance better outcome is encouraged. It was found that outcome in schizophrenia is determined both by social and occupational functioning. Early intervention in high risk offspring could enhance outcome when they develop illness. Especially when early interventions involve the area of social cognition.
In this study 5o Egyptian offspring were recruited of parents with schizophrenia and compared to their healthy matched peers with parents without mental illness.
The main aim of this study was to test trait emotional intelligence in offspring of parents with schizophrenia, and then compare them to healthy peers, the second aim to test offspring for their psychiatric morbidity the third aim to test relation between emotional intelligence and premorbid functioning.
This study found that there is a relation between trait emotional intelligence in offspring and some characteristics of their parent illness like duration of illness, there is relation between offspring trait EI and their premorbid functioning, there is relation between trait EI of the offspring and their diagnoses of ODD, separation anxiety, and specific learning disorders.
No relation found between trait emotional intelligence in offspring and their parent’s severity of schizophrenia, no relation found between trait EI of offspring and number of hospitalizations, age of the parent, offspring diagnoses of ADHD, conduct disorder.
The major strength of this study was one of the fewest studies that study offspring of schizophrenia, although the fertility in schizophrenia is affected, but the focus on this high risk group in our Egyptian mental health services will affect the prognosis of schizophrenia in Egypt.
Limitations of this study was the small sample size, the limitations of the trait emotional self-efficacy scale that depends on the children’s ability to describe their emotions, the need for cohort longitudinal study to prove causality.
Future research questions to test both ability and trait EI in offspring of schizophrenia, test neurobiology of trait and ability EI in offspring, Relation between positive, negative symptom and offspring emotional intelligence.