Emotional Intelligence Level of Year One and Two Medical Students of University Malaysia Sarawak: Association With Demographic Data

• Main Authors: Khin, Than Yee, Myat, San Yi, Khin, Cho Aung, Lwin, Mar Mar, Myint, Wai Wai
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Malaysian Society of Applied Biology 2018
• Subjects: R Medicine (General)
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/21657/1/KHIN%20THAN%20YEE.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/21657/; http://www.mabjournal.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=743&catid=59:current-view&Itemid=56

Emotional intelligence is the ability to monitor one’s own and other’s emotions, to discriminate among them, and to guide one’s thinking and actions. It is very important to assess as it helps to reason out our emotional responses. The objective of this study is to assess the emotional intelligence level of Year one and two medical students of UNIMAS. Majority has strength in all the domains except managing emotions domain where 51.5% need attention. No respondent fall into the development priority competency. There were no significant difference among all the domains between two groups but Year 1 students need more attention in managing emotions domain compared to Year 2 students. There was no significant association between demographic characteristics – age, residency, qualification and ethnicity – but there was a significant association (p value of 0.038) in male with empathy domain. Further study should be done on groups spanning from Year 1 to Year 5 as they have a greater difference in age as well as exposure to clinical practice which may have a significant impact on their emotional intelligence.