Research project Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, express, understand and manage one's own and others' emotions. It is an important prerequisite for, among other things, professionalism, stress management and communication skills of aspiring doctors.
Previous studies examining the importance of, for example, age, gender and previous education for medical students' emotional intelligence show conflicting results. Therefore, we need more knowledge before we can design educational interventions to increase the emotional intelligence of medical students.
Lava Amnelius, resident physician
The purpose of this study is to investigate the emotional intelligence of Swedish medical students and whether it is affected by how many years the students have attended medical school and by factors such as age, gender, previous education and previous work experience. The results can give us important insights into the need to develop and implement pedagogical interventions aimed at increasing students' emotional intelligence in order to prepare them for their future professional practice.
Participants in the study are medical students in semesters 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11 at Umeå University. In 2021, they filled in the Swedish version of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire – Short Form (TEIQue-SF) questionnaire, as well as answered demographic questions. The average value for each participant is then calculated and compared based on demographic factors and based on how many semesters the students have attended.
