Investigating the Relationship between Stress and Emotional Intelligence with Academic Progress of Dental Students by Measuring Salivary Cortisol Levels

Barakian, Yasamin; Kazemimoeen, Fatemeh; Asayesh, Hamid; Hajisadeghi, Samira; Keykha, Elham

doi:10.30476/dentjods.2025.104363.2526

Investigating the Relationship between Stress and Emotional Intelligence with Academic Progress of Dental Students by Measuring Salivary Cortisol Levels

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Yasamin Barakian ¹

Fatemeh Kazemimoeen ²

Hamid Asayesh ³

Samira Hajisadeghi ⁴

Elham Keykha ⁴

¹ Dept. of Oral and Maxillofacial Medicine, School of Dentistry, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran.

² School of Dentistry, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran.

³ Dept. of Medical Emergency, Qom university of medical sciences, Qom, Iran.

⁴ Research Center for Prevention of Oral and Dental Diseases, School of Dentistry, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

https://doi.org/10.30476/dentjods.2025.104363.2526

Abstract

Background: Dental schools can be a stressful place that may impair students' performance. This stress can be related to several salivary biomarkers such as salivary cortisol. Also, emotional intelligence (EI) is one of the important factors in adapting people to the environment.
Purpose: This research investigated the relationship between stress and EI with academic progress in Qom's Dental School students.
Materials and Method: This cross-sectional (descriptive-analytical) study measured salivary cortisol using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method. It involved 88 dental students in their third to sixth years. The required data were gathered using two standard questionnaires, namely Wang and Law’s EI scale and the dental environment stress questionnaire. Pearson's correlation coefficient and independent t-test were used for data analysis.
Results: A total of 88 students participated in this research, of which 54.5% were female. Salivary cortisol had no relationship with EI or stress from the dental environment (p Value= 0.201). A direct relationship was found between EI and dental environment stress (p Value= 0.011).
Conclusion: This study found no association between salivary cortisol levels, dental environment stress, and EI. Additionally, cortisol levels were inversely related to students' annual grade point average. Conversely, there was no correlation between annual grade point average and EI.

Keywords

Emotional Intelligence

Stress

Cortisol

Saliva

Dental Student

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