Hiren Patadiya

Mukesh Asrani

Sheuli Sen

Suman Sen

Journal of Research in Medical and Dental Science

Directory of Open Access Journals

Emotional Intelligence: New Vistas in Health Care                                                                                                             www.jrmds.in 
 
Journal of Research in Medical and Dental Science | Vol. 1 | Issue 2 | Oct – December 2013  82 
 
 
Emotional intelligence: new vistas in health care 
 
INTRODUCTION  
The faculty of health care profession like medical and 
dental sciences has evolved remarkably as not only 
catering to the patient’s diagnosis and treatment of 
diseases but also their emotional concerns. Emotional 
Intelligence (EI) is our capacity for recognizing our 
own feelings and those of others, for motivating 
ourselves and managing emotions well in us and our 
relationships. It allows health care professionals to 
create an environment in which they can fully apply 
their abilities and accumulated experience in dealing 
with patients. Emotional intelligence addresses the 
emotional, personal, social, and survival dimensions 
of intelligence. Emotional quotient (EQ) can be 
defined as the set of skills people use to read, 
understand, and respond intelligently to the emotional 
signals sent to us both by others and by ourselves. 
Emotional quotient (EQ) translates psychological 
nknowledge into terms that are useable by people not 
professionally trained in psychology like, dentists [1]. 
Examples of EQ skills include empathy, which is the 
ability to accurately read what other people are 
feeling, emotional self-awareness the ability to read 
what we ourselves are feeling, stress tolerance the 
ability to withstand anxiety without falling apart, and 
the ability to create mutually satisfying relationships. 
Mayer and Salovey described emotional intelligence 
as a set of abilities. It is operationally defined by the 
following four skills:  correctly identifying emotions in 
self and others, using emotions to facilitate reasoning, 
understanding emotions and managing emotions [2]. 
In 1983 Howard Gardner's introduced the idea of 
multiple intelligences which included both 
interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence. 
Interpersonal intelligence is the capacity to 
understand the intentions, motivations and desires of 
other people whereas intrapersonal intelligence, the 
capacity to understand oneself, to appreciate one's 
feelings, fears and motivations [3]. Usually health care 
professionals like dentist & clinicians spend more time 
in developing their clinical and technical skills rather 
than their interpersonal or intrapersonal skills. This 
technical side of things often makes the least 
difference in a patients’ decision process. If technical 
side is developed in isolation from emotional skills, 
problems arise in patient trust. 
Importance of Empathy in Patient-Dentist 
Relationship 
Empathy is the ability to recognize how others think 
and feel.  Empathy means recognizing, and 
responding   appropriately to the emotions of others. 
Clinicians should perceive thoughts and feeling of 
patient during period of patient’s management e.g. 
patients undergoing cancer therapy or chronic Oro-
facial pain which is a long term treatment which may 
make patient feel depress and anxious. So according 
to that patient’s state of mind they should be 
adequately managed through counseling. It also helps 
to understands patient’s anxiety and stress. 
Types of Empathy 
The first empathy is with a person’s actual situation. 
The second empathy is with a person’s aspirations. 
The strong empathy shown by health care 
professional represents an attempt to strengthen the 
human element in clinical relationship [4]. It also helps 
in better prognosis of the treatment. 
Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Medical field 
 To understand the patient better. 
 To know the problem of psychological origin. 
 To deliver the treatment in a meaningful and 
effective manner. 
 To establish effective communication with the 
patient and their relatives.  
 To gain confidence of patient.  
 To help the patient overcome fear and anxiety of 
treatment. 
 To have a better treatment planning and 
interaction with other discipline. 
 To produce a comfortable environment for the 
healthcare team to work on the patient. 
 To teach and motivate the patient importance of 
primary and preventive care. 
 
Emotional Intelligence (EI) Tips That All 
Clinicians/Dentists Can Use [5] 
Letter to Editor 
Emotional Intelligence: New Vistas in Health Care                                                                                                             www.jrmds.in 
 
Journal of Research in Medical and Dental Science | Vol. 1 | Issue 2 | Oct – December 2013  83 
 
Keep a fuzzy file on patients:   Remembering small 
details about your patients important to develop 
maintain and re-establish a relationship with patients 
when they come in. 
Develop your listening skill: Focus on what patients 
are saying and empathizing with them. As a medical 
and dental professional it is especially important to 
work on listening skills as it helps to identify patients 
root concerns. 
Avoid only using closed questions: Questions like 
these are only effective for getting you specific 
information fast and offer a very limited way of 
communicating with your patients. 
Prime Practice: Using some open-ended questions, 
those that can’t be answered in one or a few words - 
will help you build and maintain rapport with patients 
and encourage them to provide you with maximum 
information. 
Spend time building patient relationships: At first 
visit of a patient extra time should be spent to build 
rapport with a patient which helps them to accept a 
big case proposal. It may be counter-intuitive, but if 
clinician tries to build case acceptance, then it’s better 
to spend more time on the beginning of the patient’s 
experiences with practice.  
Show Empathy: Showing empathy and warmth is 
vocal quality. Vary your pitch and keep your 
comments congruent with your body language. 
Emotional Intelligence also helps in developing the 
necessary skills to conduct effective patient 
interviews, for teaching patients to manage their fears 
and anxieties, and for dealing with patients who need 
counseling. These changes help increased case 
acceptance, decreased stress levels and 
improvements in their relationships’ with patients and 
staffs. Pau et al [6] in their study explored how dental 
undergraduates with different levels of Emotional 
Intelligence (EI) cope with stress, shows that high 
students were more likely to adopt reflection and 
appraisal, social and interpersonal, and organization 
and time-management skills. Emotional Intelligence 
influences how well practitioner recognize and 
manage their emotions and professional relationships 
[7]. 
CONCLUSION 
Emotional skills contribute to success in implementing 
a relationship-based model of health care practice. 
Applying Emotional intelligence makes patient feel 
comfortable with doctor. Health care professional 
must understand the specific feelings that cause 
stress and learn ways to become more at  peace. This 
way doctors can deal easily with their professional 
burnout and will easily understand and handling 
patients. Emotionally Intelligent person is less likely to 
fall prey to social evils such as drugs and alcohol. 
Such medical professionals are more satisfied with 
their social networks and appear to receive more 
social support. 
REFERENCES 
1. Irwin M. Becker, Richard A. Green, Dana C. 
Ackley. Emotional Intelligence and Dentistry. 2010 
Irwin Becker Initiatives. Available from: 
http://www.irwinbeckerinitiatives.com/assets/pdfs/a
rticles/EmotionalIntelligenceandDentistry.pdf last 
accessed on 12 January, 2013. 
2. Codier, Estelle; Muneno, Lynn; Freitas, Elizabeth. 
Emotional intelligence abilities in oncology and 
palliative care. Journal of Hospice and Palliative 
Nursing. 2011;13(3):183-188. 
3. www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence, 
last accessed on 12 December, 2012. 
4. Pembroke N.F, Empathy Emotion and Ekstasis in 
the patient physician relation, Journal of religion 
and health, Jun 2007;26,(2).  
5. Dr Campbell MacBean BA GradDip. Psyc. Tips for 
developing Emotional Intelligence. Australasian 
Dentist, Autumn 2006. Available from: 
www.primepractice.com.au/articles/article_57.pdf, 
last accessed on 22 January, 2013. 
6. Pau, A.K.H., Croucher, R,. Sohanpal et al. 
Emotional intelligence and stress coping in dental 
undergraduates — a qualitative study. British 
Dental Journal 2004.(197):205 – 209. 
7. Karen Fox. ADA News Staff. Emotional 
intelligence  trumps IQ in dentist-patient 
relationship. American dental association. 
Available from: www.ada.org/news/8623.aspx, last 
accessed on 3 February, 2013 
 
 
 
 
Authors: 
 
Dr Suman Sen*, Dr Mukesh Asrani*, Dr Hiren Patadiya*, 
Dr.Sheuli Sen**  
 
*Senior Lecturers- Dept. of Oral Medicine and Radiology 
Karnavati School Of Dentistry 
Ahemadabad, Gujrat, India 
Email- Sumansen20@yahoo.co.in 
**Professor and Head Department of Pediatrics  
B.M Birla Collage of Nursing. Kolkata 


Emotional intelligence: new vistas in health care

https://www.jrmds.in/articles/emotional-intelligence-new-vistas-in-health-care.pdf

Emotional intelligence: new vistas in health care

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Directory of Open Access Journals