Emotional Intelligence Among Medical Students And Residents In Palestine: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to understand your own and others’ feelings, to respond to them, and to use your understanding in order to guide your actions. In medical education and clinical practice, EI has been related to improved doctor-patient relationships.

Objective: To assess EI level among Palestinian medical students in two stages of their studies, clinical and basic sciences, and to assess factors that may affect it.

Methods: A quantitative, cross-sectional, questionnaire-based, online survey was conducted among 639 medical students attending Al-Quds and Al-Najah Universities in Palestine. Emotional intelligence was evaluated using the 33-item scale introduced by Schutte et al. (1998). Then data was analyzed in a quantitative manner using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (Ver. 20.0).

Results: The mean EI was 3.72 (SD=0.36) out of maximum possible score of 5, with 55.9% having high EI (>3.68). EI decreased significantly at α≤0.05 across basic and clinical stages of study, with a negative correlation between EI and academic year (PCC= -0.086). This indicates that as academic year increases, EI decreases (p=0.023). Moreover, EI was affected positively and significantly at α≤0.05 by having a hobby or doing extracurricular activities. In addition, students who indicate continual regret for studying medicine tend to have lower EI.

Conclusion: Participating medical students, both male and female, had relatively high levels of emotional intelligence. However, students in the clinical stage had lower EI than those in the basic sciences stage, which indicates a conflict between objectivity and humanity while training clinically. Therefore, emotional support during clinical years would aid in improving EI. Moreover, EI increases by doin[1]g hobbies or extracurricular activities indicates that EI can be modulated through encouragement of such activities. While it decreases with regretting getting into medical school, which may reflect a lack of interest in studying this field