RESUMEN
Background: The capacity to grasp and recognize one's own and human feelings, use cognitive awareness to control actions and behavior, and modify moods in response to difficult situations is known as emotional intelligence (EI). Perceived stress has been linked to higher levels of depression among healthcare students. This study set out to assess EI, perceived stress (PS), and life quality assessment (LQA) among dental undergraduates and to ascertain how these factors are linked to one another. Materials and Methods: The self-reported cross-sectional research was organized among preclinical and clinical years of dental students to examine their emotional intelligence and stress-coping capacity. About 146 students participated in the study, with ages ranging from 19 to 25, irrespective of gender. The students were given the Schutte Emotional Intelligence and Perceived Stress Scale tools (PSS10) by Cohen, and with World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF) tool examined the characteristics that contribute to life quality among students. Results: The study included 146 individuals, 38 males (26.02%) and 108 females (73.97%), with an unresponsiveness rate of 2.66%. The correlation revealed statistically high significance among emotional intelligence and perceived stress (P = 0.000), perceived stress and life quality (P = 0.02), and emotional intelligence and life quality (P = 0.008). The statistical analysis of the influence of EI, PS, and LQA on academic year-wise analysis determined non-significant (P > 0.05). Conclusion: Due to the time constraints of their job, dentistry training may be highly stressful, yet regular evaluations of student performance and the accompanying factors would help us to understand how students behave in challenging circumstances.
RESUMEN
INTRODUCTION: The empathetic behaviour of dentists is essential for perfect patient care. Because the behaviour of child patients in a dental clinic differs from that exhibited by the adults, knowing of empathy of dental students towards the child in the dental clinic is an important concern. METHODS: We distributed a modified form of the Health Professions Student version (HPS-version) of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE) to dental students in two rounds: (R1) before and (R2) after introducing behaviour guidance subcourse and exposure to 3 clinical experiences with children to measure changes in empathy of dental students towards child patients. The modifications include replacing the "patient" words with "child patients" and translation into Arabic. We checked the internal consistency of the modified form of HPS-version by Cronbach's coefficient alpha test. The significance level was set at 0.05 for all statistical analyses. RESULTS: Out of eighty-one, sixty-five dental students completed the survey and attended a behaviour guidance course and three clinical sessions. The questionnaire showed accepted reliability. There was a significant decrease in the empathy of dental students in R2 than R1 (P < .05). The level of empathy for males was less than female students in both rounds (P < .05). CONCLUSIONS: The clinical interaction of children by dental students inhibits their empathy towards child patients, and a specific training course is needed to improve dental students' empathy towards children since learning behaviour guidance may not sufficient.
