Associations of dental students' professionalism and emotional intelligence with patients' professionalism perceptions and treatment satisfaction at the University of Science and Technology, Sudan: a cross-sectional study 2021-2022.

backgroundProfessionalism and emotional intelligence (EI) are essential for dental students and practitioners to develop and maintain competence in dentistry. Students with higher levels of professionalism and EI tend to perform better academically and provide higher-quality patient care. The present study aimed to determine dental students' self-perceived levels of professionalism and EI as well as the associations of these skills with patients' perceptions of students' professionalism and treatment satisfaction at the University of Science and Technology (UST).

methodsUtilizing a cross-sectional design, data were collected from 119 randomly selected dental students and 111 patients attending the UST dental hospital. The questionnaires were distributed among the students and patients as follows: the students' Dundee Poly-professionalism Inventory I (30 statements), the students' Emotional Intelligence Competence Inventory (20 statements), the patients' Professionalism Perception Questionnaire (22 statements), and the Patients' Satisfaction Questionnaire (10 statements). The variables' scores are presented as the means and standard deviations (SDs). Variables were thereafter dichotomized and presented as frequencies and percentages. Logistic regressions were performed to explore the possible associations of students' professionalism and EI with patients' professionalism perceptions and treatment satisfaction.

resultsA total of 68.1% of the students had high professionalism scores, and 69% had high EI scores. Additionally, 68.1% of patients reported a high perception of students' professionalism, and 67.6% had high treatment satisfaction. Logistic regression analysis revealed that higher students' EI was significantly associated with higher patients' professionalism perceptions (odds ratio = 3 and p = 0.029). Although the association was not statistically significant, higher levels of students' professionalism corresponded with a greater likelihood of higher patient perceptions of professionalism (OR = 1.8, p = 0.186).

conclusionsThe study shows that emotional intelligence plays a key role in how patients view students' professionalism. Training students to improve their emotional intelligence may lead to better patient interactions and greater patient satisfaction. CLINICAL TRIAL NUMBER: Not applicable.