Journal of Oral Hygiene & Health
Open Access

The first step of any clinician-patient relationship is rapport building, which is the cornerstone of patient-centered care. Emotional Intelligence (EI) plays a significant role in recognizing patient sentiments that are directly related to clinical decision-making. Besides that EI is also a key component in communication. EI consists of self-confidence, self-awareness, social competence, self-control, empathy, self-control, and motivation. Just qualification and clinical skills are not enough to become a successful clinician. It requires a different dimensional growth in a personality other than instrumental competency and knowledge from books.

In the dental hygiene care process, the patient is an active participant, and without his/her involvement, a dental hygienist cannot achieve clinical outcomes. Effective communication is the key to gain patient compliance in the treatment. Patient education is a significant part of the overall dental hygiene process of care. An emotionally intelligent clinician with a higher level of self-awareness can engage the patient in a comprehensive treatment plan more efficiently. Emotional Intelligence has been consistently reported in many studies as a predictor of patient satisfaction. Using EI dental hygienists can also avoid ethical dilemmas. Effective application of EI skills leads to higher patient satisfaction, ultimately better clinical outcomes. Studies show that EI is also strongly associated with traits of professionalism. Higher EI also increases ethical validity.

Integration of simple emotionally intelligent things in routine hygiene practice can make your patient experience pleasant. Most important is selfawareness, by recognizing your feelings. To practice it, start labeling your feelings. Secondly, make them feel you are the same kind of person. To practice it, tell them you use to make the same mistakes, or you had the same kind of shortcoming, so they don't feel embarrassed. Always stay positive and motivate them that it's completely doable. Everybody has negative emotions like anxiety and fear. Don't try to hide them, if you do, you may make a blunder, handle them bravely. Lastly, keep everything crystal clear via integrating honesty, and sincerity. It will give you confidence in dealing.

It is an assumption that EI is also important for academic success, but it requires more studies. Some studies also show a moderate positive correlation between EI and academic score, while a weak positive correlation was reported between EI and clinical GPA. Studies also reported the correlation of self-control, self-confidence, and motivation scores with academic scores. The higher academic scores may depict our knowledge, but it doesn't mean you can apply acquired knowledge efficiently.

Interestingly, EI is not the same as human nature but it’s a learnable skill. In several studies, empathy scores were observed as strongly correlated with clinical outcomes. Interventional experiments are required to generate data for the impact of EI on professional growth. EI learning as a part of the dental hygiene curriculum will be helpful for the students for better academic and clinical success. EI is the potent tool to construct two-way communication. By making the right judgment of the patient's feelings, a clinician can make a correct clinical-decision which ultimately leads to better treatment outcomes. Further, EI is an acquirable skill, and constructive learning should be included in the academic curriculum. Further studies are required in this area to explore specific attributes of EI concerning clinical outcomes.