Effects of Simulated Patient Practice on attitudes towards communication skills training of medical students: An intervention study

Year 2024, , 87 - 97, 18.09.2024

Esra Çınar Tanrıverdi , Yeşim Şenol , Pınar Daylan Koçkaya

https://doi.org/10.62425/conicom.1533694

Abstract

Communication is a basic clinical skill that can be learned, taught, and evaluated. This study aimed to assess the attitudes of medical faculty sophomore students toward the communication skills training module consists theory courses and simulated patient interviews.
This study was planned in a before-and-after intervention study and was carried out with 257 second-year medical students. The Communication Skills Attitude Scale (CSAS) was used for data collection. The scale was administered to the participants before the training (1), after the training (2), and after the simulated patient interviews (3). Positive attitude scores (PAS 1,2,3), and negative attitude scores (NAS 1,2,3) were evaluated.
The mean age of the students was 20.13±2.13 years, and 133 (51.8%) were female. PAS 1 and PAS 3 scores were 55.38±6.58 and 58.05±7.39, respectively, while NAS 1 and 3 scores were 30.25±4.49 and 28.88±4.96, respectively. PAS 3 was considerably higher than PAS 1 and 2 scores (p=.03), at the same time NAS 3 was significantly lower than NAS 1 and 2 scores (p=.00). There was no difference between the positive and negative attitudes of females and males before the training (p>.05). However, after the training, female's positive scores significantly increased compared to men (p=.03), and their negative scores decreased (p=.01).

Keywords

Communication skills, Communication Skills Attitude Scale, medical student, simulated patient

Ethical Statement

The ethical permission for the study was obtained from the Atatürk University Faculty of Medicine Ethics Committee (Number: B.30.2.ATA.0.01.00/58).

Supporting Institution

None

Project Number

None

Thanks

We thank our students who participated in the study.

References

• Agledahl, K., Gulbr&sen, P., Førde, R., & Wifstad, Å. (2011). Courteous but not curious: how doctors' politeness masks their existential neglect. A qualitative study of video-recorded patient consultations. Journal of Medical Ethics, 37(11), 650-654.
• Alotaibi, F. S. & Alsaeedi, A. (2016). Attitudes of medical students toward communication skills learning in Western Saudi Arabia. Saudi Medical Journal, 37(7), 791.
• Anvik, T., Grimstad, H., Baerheim, A., Bernt Fasmer, O., Gude, T., Hjortdahl, P., Holen, A., Risberg, T. & Vaglum, P. (2008). Medical students’ cognitive and affective attitudes towards learning and using communication skills–a nationwide cross-sectional study. Medical Teacher, 30(3), 272-279.
• Anvik, T., Gude, T., Grimstad, H., Baerheim, A., Fasmer, O. B., Hjortdahl, P., Holen, A., Risberg, T. & Vaglum, P. (2007). Assessing medical students' attitudes towards learning communication skills–which components of attitudes do we measure? BMC Medical Education, 7(1), ,4.