The investigation of the relationship between emotional intelligence and clinical self-assessment in paramedical students of Bushehr University of Medical Sciences in 2019

Acquiring clinical skills by paramedical students is one of the determining factors of professional success. Self-assessment is one of the best method for determining knowledge and clinical skills because the learner is a clear and first-hand source for gathering knowledge and practical capabilities, and no one has a clear and unvarnished view of him except him. Clinical success and self-evaluation, as the indicators of the quality of clinical practice, are influenced by several factors, and knowing these factors can be beneficial to improve the quality of clinical practice. Also, some factors, including emotional and social skills, or in the other words, emotional intelligence, are effective on clinical self-evaluation. There are the limited number of studies on factors affecting clinical self-evaluation, and identifying these factors can can be a basis for planning to improve clinical skills; therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of determining the relationship between clinical self-evaluation and emotional intelligence in paramedical students of Bushehr University of Medical Sciences.

The present research is a descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study. The research population included students of nursing, midwifery, operating room, and anesthesiology at Bushehr University of Medical Sciences. To determine the sample size, the sample size formula was used for regression. Therefore, by including 10 samples for each predictor variable, 130 samples were considered, and according to the probability of 10% drop, the final sample volume was calculated as 143 people; Considering that the sample size is close to the total number of the research community, sampling method was done in census; In this way, all the students of the 4th, 6th and 8th semesters of the mentioned fields (145 students) entered the study in February 2019. The data collection tool included a demographic information form, the standard Sybershring questionnaire emotional intelligence, and a clinical self-assessment questionnaire. The emotional intelligence questionnaire includes 33 items and 5 subscales of self-motivation (7 items), self-awareness (8 items), self-control (7 items), social awareness or empathy (6 items), and social skills (5 items). The range of responses to the items is 5-point Likert (always, often, sometimes, rarely, never), Which is given a score of 1 to 5 from worst to best. The highest score in this test is 165 and the lowest score is 33. The clinical self-evaluation questionnaire is a researcher-made questionnaire that included 13 items related to the clinical evaluation of students. Questionnaire items were compiled using literature review, guidelines and experts' opinions. The response scale for this section was a five-point Likert scale (very high, high, medium, low, and very low), which was assigned a score of 5 to 1 respectively. The minimum and maximum scores that could be obtained were 13 and 65, respectively. Before collecting information, this questionnaire was reviewed and approved by 10 members of the academic staff in terms of face validity and content. Meanwhile, the reliability of the tool was checked by conducting a pilot study on 20 samples and through test-retest and with r = 0.8 approved. Also, the internal correlation of this questionnaire was confirmed with Cronbach's alpha of 0.85. In order to make comparable the fields of emotional intelligence and to understand the scores of the variables, the scores of emotional intelligence, its fields and clinical self-evaluation were converted to a score of 0 to 100 by linear transformation. In the demographic information form, students' views on their educational status were examined with one question, which was divided into three levels: good, average, and poor. Mean, standard deviation, median and frequency tables were used to describe the data. Univariate linear regression was used to analyze the data, followed by hierarchical multivariate linear regression with simultaneous method. Variables that were related to self-assessment dependent variable in univariate regression were entered into multivariate regression. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 19. For all cases, the significance level was less than 0.05.

The average age was 22.7±2.1 years old. The average score of the written average of the diploma was 16.69 ± 1.58. The mean scores of emotional intelligence and self-assessment were 74.59 ± 9.96 and 59.38 ± 8.54, respectively. Based on the results of univariate regression, age, educational status from the individual's perspective, total emotional intelligence and three areas of emotional intelligence including self-awareness, empathy and skill were related to self-evaluation. Based on the results of multivariate regression in the first model where age and educational status from the individual's perspective were in the model, these two variables together explained 16% of the variance of self-evaluation and the model was statistically significant (P<0.001, F = 8/857). In the second model, when total emotional intelligence was added to the model, the variables in the model explained 20% of the variance of the dependent variable of self-evaluation, and the variance change was statistically significant (P<0.001, F = 8/693). The results of the final model showed that good and average academic status (compared to poor academic status), age and the total score of emotional intelligence are directly related to self-evaluation. There was a positive and significant statistical relationship between emotional intelligence and self-evaluation (P=0.009, β=0.208).

Considering that the acquisition of clinical skills by paramedical students and their confidence that they are capable of performing these skills plays an important role in their career success in the future, and considering that emotional intelligence is directly related to the clinical self-evaluation score; Designing interventions and strategies to increase emotional intelligence in students should be one of the concerns of higher education policy makers. Therefore, it is suggested to include the training of social and emotional skills in the educational program of universities.