Methods: This is a comparative cross-sectional study on two cohorts of pre-clinical medical students who were selected by multiple mini interviews and personal interview, respectively. Their personality traits, emotional intelligence, perceived educational environment, and perceived stressors were measured using different measurement tools.
Results: Multiple mini interviews and personal interview demonstrated a similar ability to recruit medical students with a high level of emotional intelligence. The main advantage of personal interviews over multiple mini interviews in terms of personality traits is that it recruited candidates who had a higher level of conscientiousness trait. The main advantage of multiple mini interviews over personal interview on the educational environment is that medical students chosen by multiple mini interviews had a higher level of satisfaction with social aspects of medical training. Regardless of admission processes, the medical students were equally vulnerable to psychological distress due to various stressful events throughout medical training particularly related to academic loads.
Conclusions: This study provided evidence to support the outcomes that multiple mini interviews and personal interview have on medical students' emotional intelligence, personality traits, perceived educational environment, and perceived stressors during the pre-clinical medical training. Interestingly, personal interview had a better outcome on conscientiousness while multiple mini interviews had a better outcome on the social aspect.
Methods: A comparative cross-sectional study was conducted on the interviewed and non-interviewed cohorts. Their examination marks were obtained from the academic office, psychological health was measured by DASS-21, personality traits were measured by USMaP-15, and emotional intelligence was measured by USMEQ-17.
Results: The interviewed cohort performed significantly better in the clinical examination than the non-interviewed cohort. Conversely, the non-interviewed cohort performed significantly better in the theoretical examination. Depression, anxiety, and stress level between the two cohorts showed no difference. The interviewed cohort demonstrated more desirable personality traits, higher emotional intelligence, and social competence than the non-interviewed cohort.
Discussion: This study provides evidence to support the claim that the interview-based admission process has favourable outcomes on clinical performance, emotional intelligence, and personality traits. Several insights gained as a result of this study are discussed.