Social intelligence and medical empathy in Iranian and English medical students: a comparative cross-cultural study

Introduction: social intelligence and physician empathy with patients considered as two effective factors in the quality of medical services. These variables are influenced by culture and they have various manifestations in different cultures which considering them is effective in appropriate communication between physician and patient. Aim: This study aimed to compare the social intelligence and physician empathy with the patient in the medical students from Iran and the United Kingdom to investigate the potential relationship between these two variables. Methodology: The population was consist of medical students of medical universities from 3 cities: Tehran (Iran), London and Sheffield (England).The sample consisted of 182 students from two countries (88 Iranian, 94 English) which selected by convenience sampling method. Data was collected by Tromso Social Intelligence Scale (2001), Jefferson scale of physician empathy- Health provider student revised version (2001) and researcher made demographic questionnaire. To analyze the data, t-test and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used. Results: results showed that there is a significant positive correlation between social intelligence and empathy of medical students (R = 0/37, P <0/01). Multivariate analysis also showed that the two subscales of social intelligence including social awareness and social skills in Iranian students were higher than English students. But in social information processing component there is no difference between two groups. The compassionate care and Standing in the Patient's Shoes are to components of empathy which was higher in Iranian students rather than English students. But there is no difference between two groups in another subscale of empathy called perspective taking. Conclusion: The result of this study reveals the importance of cultural differences on personality factors such as the social intelligence and the physician ability to empathize with patients.