Assessment of Dental Residents' Attitudes toward Learning Communication Skills

Abstract

Introduction: Communication is a central part of our daily clinical lives and forms the foundation of a good professional relationship. This study aims to evaluate the attitudes of residents at the Faculty of dental medicine (FDM) UNIVERSITY HASSAN II CASABLANCA regarding the learning of communication skills. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study to assess the attitudes of FDM residents about learning communication skills, we distributed the questionnaire to all residents. We used as an instrument an anonymous questionnaire in English, this questionnaire is divided into two parts: part A devoted to socio-demographic data such as age, gender, and year of study, and part B used a validated scale developed by Rees to measure residents' attitude towards social sciences. Results: all residents agreed to complete the questionnaire, responses, i.e. a response rate of 100%, the mean age of the residents was 26,9 ± 2,96, with extremes ranging from 23 to 40 years. The score of positive attitude score over the entire study population was 53.13 ± 5.2 (43-63) and the mean score of negative attitude score was 36.77 ± 7.01 (24-52). The residents have manifested an interest to participate in CS courses. Discussion: The success of the therapeutic relationship cannot be achieved without a certain congruence between the patient and the practitioner. In addition, it appears that the only way to achieve this goal is through communication. Communication is very important for a successful therapeutic relationship in dentistry, several studies have focused on the communication training of dental students, and these studies have recommended from their findings that it is necessary to include communication skills courses and examinations in the dental curriculum. Conclusion: It is concluded from our study that dental residents are interested in learning communication skills. It is therefore proposed to continuously train residents in communication skills as part of their training curriculum and to evaluate the learned communication skills continuously by professors.