Abstract

Introduction: Spiritual intelligence offer adaptation, internal and external integrity, environmental harmony and problem solving. The medical students are potential workforce of future in medical and caring areas hence it is essential to assess the spiritual intelligence in this group of academics to improve the quality of clinical care. The aim of the study was to investigate correlation of spiritual intelligence with some of demographic and educational factors among the students of Golestan University of Medical Sciences.

Materials and Methods: This descriptive correlational study was conducted in 2011 on 282 medical and paramedical students of the university who entered the study through simple random sampling. The data gathered by a demographic questionnaire and "Spiritual Intelligence Questionnaire" that cover four main domains "general thoughts and beliefs”, “ability of dealing with problems”, “spiritual traits”, “self- awareness and compassion".

The validity of questionnaire was confirmed with criterion- related validity and the reliability of questionnaire was obtained with alpha Cronbach coefficient of 0.85. The data was analyzed with SPSS /16 using descriptive and analytical statistical tests. The significance level of test was considered as P<0.05.

Findings: The mean age of the participants was 20.17±1.70 year old and 76 percent of them were female. The average spiritual intelligence score from 5 likert score in four domains was 106.65±13.93 from 222. The mean and standard deviation of each four domain respectively in "general thoughts and beliefs” was 2.13±0.56, in "ability of dealing with problems” was 2.90±0.62, in “spiritual traits” had value of 2.20±0.45 and finally in ”self- awareness and compassion” standard deviation was 2.59±0.64.

Although the average spiritual intelligence score in male students (2.58±0.36) was slightly higher than the one in female students (2.51±0.28), however this was not statistically significant (p=0.15). There was also no significant correlation between age, sex, marital status, ethnicity, major of study and grade point average with spiritual intelligence.

Conclusion: The mean average of spiritual intelligence of students of Golestan University in "ability of dealing with problems" domain was higher than other domains. The study draws our attention to issue of spiritual intelligence, which is a fundamental concept in delivering comprehensive care.