Impact of postgraduate training on communication skills teaching: a controlled study

BMC Medical Education

Diana Dolmans²  Cees P van der Vleuten²  Bernard Cerutti¹  Anne Gut³  Johanna Sommer³  Martine Louis-Simonet⁴  Mathieu Nendaz⁴  Noelle Junod Perron¹ 

[1]Unit of Development and Research in Medical Education, University of Geneva Faculty of Medicine, Geneva, Switzerland

[2]Department for Educational Development and Research, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

[3]Geneva University Faculty of Medicine, Geneva, Switzerland

[4]Department of Internal Medicine, Rehabilitation and Geriatric Medicine, Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland

关键词: Postgraduate;    Resident;    Supervisors;    Controlled study;    Feedback;    Direct observation;    Intervention;    Impact;    Teaching;    Communication skills;   

Others  :  865448
DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6920-14-80

 received in 2013-09-08, accepted in 2014-04-03,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Observation of performance followed by feedback is the key to good teaching of communication skills in clinical practice. The fact that it occurs rarely is probably due to clinical supervisors’ perceived lack of competence to identify communication skills and give effective feedback. We evaluated the impact of a faculty development programme on communication skills teaching on clinical supervisors’ ability to identify residents’ good and poor communication skills and to discuss them interactively during feedback.

Methods

We conducted a pre-post controlled study in which clinical supervisors took part to a faculty development program on teaching communication skills in clinical practice. Outcome measures were the number and type of residents’ communication skills identified by supervisors in three videotaped simulated resident-patient encounters and the number and type of communication skills discussed interactively with residents during three feedback sessions.

Results

48 clinical supervisors (28 intervention group; 20 control group) participated. After the intervention, the number and type of communication skills identified did not differ between both groups. There was substantial heterogeneity in the number and type of communication skills identified. However, trained participants engaged in interactive discussions with residents on a significantly higher number of communication items (effect sizes 0.53 to 1.77); communication skills items discussed interactively included both structural and patient-centered elements that were considered important to be observed by expert teachers.

Conclusions

The faculty development programme did not increase the number of communication skills recognised by supervisors but was effective in increasing the number of communication issues discussed interactively in feedback sessions. Further research should explore the respective impact of accurate identification of communication skills and effective teaching skills on achieving more effective communication skills teaching in clinical practice.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Junod Perron et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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