Results:
Out of 745 medical students, 692 students completed the questionnaire, giving a response rate of 92.88%. The demographic characteristics of the participants are described in Table 1.
Participants showed a high mean EI score (3.83) (the distribution is summarized in Table 2) with a standard deviation (SD) of 0.41. Analysis of individual questions revealed high mean values for some, like: ”I motivate myself by imaging a good outcome to tasks I take” (mean 4.35) and ”I compliment others when they’ve done something well” (mean 4.31). In contrast, the question with the lowest individual mean score was: “I like to share my emotions with others” (mean 3.00).
As seen in Table 3, the present study found that emotional intelligence is significantly higher in basic medical sciences students (mean = 3.89) than clinical medical students (mean=3.78). In addition, those students participating in extracurricular activities or having a hobby demonstrated significantly higher emotional intelligence scores (mean=3.92) than those who do not (mean=3.76). Student hobbies and extracurricular activities are summarized in Figure 1. Another significant finding is that students who always regret studying medicine have significantly lower mean EI score (3.37) than those with less-frequent or no regret (usually=3.66, sometimes=3.82, rare=3.87, never=4.02).
Increasing academic year had a negative correlation with 11 of the 33 individual items asked (Table 4). However, other variables considered in the study (gender, university, social status, marital status, place of residency, family income, siblings studying medicine, living with family, and GPA) showed no significant effects on EI score. Therefore, at α ≤0.05, there is no significant difference in the mean emotional intelligence score between medical students of Al-Quds University (mean=3.83) and Al-Najah University (mean= 3.84) (p = 0.622).