Emotional intelligence scale for medical students

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Emotional Intelligence has been associated with positive outcome process in varied professions. There is paucity of Indian literature on the subject; especially involving medical undergraduates; and presently there is no scale available to measure the same in the Indian scenario. OBJECTIVE: To develop a scale to measure Emotional Intelligence among medical undergraduates. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Four domains of Emotional intelligence were selected, viz. Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social-Awareness & Social-Skills and these were included for the purpose of domains of the scale. On the basis of focused group discussions and in-depth deliberations with experts, undergraduate and postgraduate medical students a pool of 50 items was generated. The items were reduced to 27 based on expert consensus and on the basis of frequency of endorsement by expert reviews. It was followed by a pilot study of 50 undergraduates. This completed the preparation of the preliminary draft based on content analysis. The questionnaire was then administered in 480 students and the data was analyzed by appropriate statistical methods. For the purpose of concurrent validity, emotional intelligence scale developed by Dr. Ekta was used. RESULTS: The Cronbach's Alpha for Internal Consistency Reliability was 0.68. The EIS had a significant correlation with social awareness domain of Emotional Intelligence Test (EIT) establishing Concurrent Validity. CONCLUSION: Emotional Intelligence Scale for medical undergraduates was constructed. Reliability and concurrent validity were also established for the same.