Background: Emotional intelligence in psychiatric practice can enhance the quality of nursing care by boosting nurses' competencies. Aim: to assess the relationship between emotional intelligence and psychiatric nurses' professional competence. Design: A descriptive design was utilized. Setting: The study was conducted at El Mamoura Mental Health Hospital in Alexandria Governorate. Subject: Purposive sample of 40 psychiatric nurses with specific inclusion criteria. Data collection tools: Three tools were used I: A structured interview questionnaire. II: The assessing emotions scale (AES-33): and III: Psychiatric nurses' competency checklist. Results: there was a moderate positive correlation between the studied psychiatric nurses' emotional intelligence and their professional competence in which r =0.444, p-value =0.001. Conclusion: Psychiatric nurses' professional competence was indicated to have a direct relationship with emotional intelligence. Recommendation: Training programs in the field of emotional intelligence should be developed and implemented for nurses to increase their ability to control and regulate emotions, reducing burnout and improving level of performance.