Effectiveness of a communication skills training program for medical students to identify patients communicative clues.

OBJECTIVE: This study explores whether an Experiential Training Programme (ETP) in communication skills (CS) improves students' ability to identify patients clues compared to those who follow a non-experiential training throughout their medical studies. METHOD: Intervention Group (IG): 85 4th-year medical students who received the ETP and Control Group (CG): 67 recently graduated students who did not receive it. Their immediate (written) response was requested to three expressions offered by patients containing communicative clues. The answers were grouped into 2 categories: Clue recognised and response patient-centred and the opposite. Three researchers analysed the answers. RESULTS: Responses 366 (65 from the CG and 77 from the IG): 280 did not recognise clues: 131 (62%) in IG and 149 (96%) in CG and 86 recognised them: 80 (37.9%) in IG and 6 (3.9%) in CG (p = 0.000). Some clues were more elusive than others (p = 0,003). CONCLUSIONS: The students who received the ETP in CS showed greater ability to explore patients perspective taking advantage of different types of communicative clues than those who did not receive it in a non-relational context. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Further research is needed to assess whether this ability is maintained in simulated or real clinical situations.

Effectiveness of a clinical interviewing training program for family practice residents: a randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: This study evaluated the effectiveness of a clinical interviewing training program for third-year family practice trainees and determined which other factors influence residents' training in clinical communication. METHODS: This was a randomized, multicenter, educational trial involving 193 third-year family practice residents from eight centers in Spain. Centers were randomly assigned to two groups, one of which would undertake a communication skills training program and one of which would not. The program was resident centered, based on residents' practice experience, and provided structured feedback. The main outcome measures were residents' consultation behavior with six standardized patient encounters (three before and three after the training) as measured with the GATHA-RES rating scale by an observer blinded to group assignment of the residents. RESULTS: The intervention group trainees displayed marginally better communication skills at the start of the study than those in the control group. At the end of the study, trainees who had received the training program did not show better communication skills than those who had not received the training program. Factors related to the training center environment, having a teacher trained in clinical interviewing, younger age, and a longer interview duration correlated with better communication skills. CONCLUSIONS: The trial program did not appear to improve the global communication skills of trainees. This study highlights the importance of the trainee's teachers, the residency program environment, and earlier exposure to training in planning future programs to improve residents' communication skills.