Can Spiritual Intelligence Affect Professionalism in Medical Faculty Members?

Introduction: Regarding to the importance of spiritual intelligence and professionalism in faculty development, this study aimed to determine the level of spiritual intelligence, the level of professional development and leadership, and performance of professional responsibilities as two components of professionalism, and the relationship between spiritual intelligence and professionalism.

Methods: This is a correlation cross-sectional study with 160 medical faculty members as subjects, which was defined base on stratified probability sampling in one of the medical universities in Iran. King’s modified spiritual intelligence questionnaire and teaching competency self assessment instrument of Alabama University were used. Statistical tests such as t-test, two-way ANOVA, Mann-Whitney, Kruskal–Wallis, spearman and regressions were applied to analyze. P-value <0.05 was considered significant.

Results: The results showed that the mean score of spiritual intelligence was 63±1.2, which classifies as moderate. The median score of professional development and leadership was 9 with range between 4 and 12; and the median score of performance of professional responsibilities was 17 with range between 5 and 20. There was a significant relationship between spiritual intelligence and performance of professional responsibilities (r_s=0.23, p=0.003). There was no significant relationship between spiritual intelligence and professional development and leadership (r_s=0.13, p=0.11).

Conclusion: We found a significant relationship between spiritual intelligence and self assessed professionalism components in performance of professional responsibilities dimension, indicating that spiritual intelligence can be the basis for professional promotion.