Emotional intelligence of medical undergraduates: a cross sectional study

Background: Emotional intelligence (EI) is defined as the ability to perceive, access and generate emotions. This in turn will assist thoughts to understand emotions and emotional meanings and thus reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote both better emotional and intellectual growth. EI is essential for a competent physician. The present study was conducted to know the EI of medical students.Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted at Government Medical College Nagpur among final year part 1 medical undergraduates. Data was collected with the help of pre tested, predesigned, self-administered proforma based on the “quick emotional intelligence self-assessment questionnaire”. Statistical analysis was done with epi info software and appropriate statistical tests were applied to prove the significance.Results: Of the total 197 study participants, 100 (50.76%) were female students and remaining 97 (49.24%) were male students. Mean score for EI was 102.16 With 95% confidence the population mean is between 99.6 and 105.Conclusions: Emotional intelligence for most of the study participants belonged to ‘consider strengthening’ category indicating good scores. Female medical undergraduates were more emotionally intelligent than male students.

Morbidity Profile of Pre-School Children in an Urban Slum Area.

Background : Pre-school morbidity is an important index of the health status of a community. The high degree of morbidity amongst this age group in India is a common occurrence. Objectives : To study burden of illness and etiology of morbidity in pre-school children (0-5 year). Material & Methods : Cross sectional study for 4 months in an urban slum area of Visakhapatnam. Clinical examination of the children in age-group 0-5 years along with interviews of their parents were done in a house-to-house survey. Results: Morbidity was found in 146 out of the total 353 children. The male-female ratio of morbid children was 1.5: 1. Communicable diseases were found in 82% while non-communicable diseases like PEM and anaemia was a finding in about 18%. Conclusions : Communicable diseases were commoner cause of morbidity in the pre-school children. The conditions associated with morbidity were younger age, poor socioeconomic conditions, low birth weight & increasing birth-order.