Giulia Zerbini, Philipp Reicherts, Miriam Reicherts, Nina Roob, Pia Schneider, Andrea Dankert, Sophie-Kathrin Greiner, Martina Kadmon, Veronika Lechner, Marco Roos, Mareike Schimmel, Wolfgang Strube, Selin Temizel, Luise Uhrmacher, Miriam Kunz
{"title":"Communication skills of medical students: Evaluation of a new communication curriculum at the University of Augsburg.","authors":"Giulia Zerbini, Philipp Reicherts, Miriam Reicherts, Nina Roob, Pia Schneider, Andrea Dankert, Sophie-Kathrin Greiner, Martina Kadmon, Veronika Lechner, Marco Roos, Mareike Schimmel, Wolfgang Strube, Selin Temizel, Luise Uhrmacher, Miriam Kunz","doi":"10.3205/zma001681","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>Teaching communication skills plays a pivotal role in medical curricula. The aim of this article is to describe and evaluate a new communication curriculum developed at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Augsburg (KomCuA), which was conceptualized by an interdisciplinary team based on recommended quality standards (i.e., helical, integrated, longitudinal).</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>A total of 150 medical students enrolled in the 1<sup>st</sup>, 3<sup>rd</sup>, and ≥5<sup>th</sup> semester participated in the study. They completed an online survey (numerical rating scales and validated questionnaires) evaluating their current communication skills, how these developed across the curriculum in terms of quality and self-confidence, and how helpful they considered practicing in small group tutorials with simulated patients. The students' attitudes towards communication and empathy in the context of medical care were additionally assessed. The students' responses were compared across semesters using one-way univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Overall, students reported improved communications skills due to attending the KomCuA and further considered practicing with simulated patients as being very helpful (large effect sizes). Compared to 1<sup>st</sup> semester students, 3<sup>rd</sup> and ≥5<sup>th</sup> semester students reported better communication skills (medium to large effect sizes). Additionally, ≥5<sup>th</sup> semester students showed stronger agreement towards the relevance of empathy in the context of medical care (medium effect size) compared to both 1<sup>st</sup> and 3<sup>rd</sup> semester students.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>The KomCuA has shown to be an effective communication curriculum to support medical students in the development of their communication skills and positive attitudes towards empathy. Additional studies assessing students' communication skills and empathic attitudes longitudinally are warranted to confirm the present results and to gain further knowledge on how these essential skills and attitudes develop across medical curricula.</p>","PeriodicalId":45850,"journal":{"name":"GMS Journal for Medical Education","volume":"41 3","pages":"Doc26"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11310792/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"GMS Journal for Medical Education","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3205/zma001681","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"EDUCATION, SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Objectives: Teaching communication skills plays a pivotal role in medical curricula. The aim of this article is to describe and evaluate a new communication curriculum developed at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Augsburg (KomCuA), which was conceptualized by an interdisciplinary team based on recommended quality standards (i.e., helical, integrated, longitudinal).
Methods: A total of 150 medical students enrolled in the 1st, 3rd, and ≥5th semester participated in the study. They completed an online survey (numerical rating scales and validated questionnaires) evaluating their current communication skills, how these developed across the curriculum in terms of quality and self-confidence, and how helpful they considered practicing in small group tutorials with simulated patients. The students' attitudes towards communication and empathy in the context of medical care were additionally assessed. The students' responses were compared across semesters using one-way univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA).
Results: Overall, students reported improved communications skills due to attending the KomCuA and further considered practicing with simulated patients as being very helpful (large effect sizes). Compared to 1st semester students, 3rd and ≥5th semester students reported better communication skills (medium to large effect sizes). Additionally, ≥5th semester students showed stronger agreement towards the relevance of empathy in the context of medical care (medium effect size) compared to both 1st and 3rd semester students.
Conclusion: The KomCuA has shown to be an effective communication curriculum to support medical students in the development of their communication skills and positive attitudes towards empathy. Additional studies assessing students' communication skills and empathic attitudes longitudinally are warranted to confirm the present results and to gain further knowledge on how these essential skills and attitudes develop across medical curricula.
期刊介绍：
GMS Journal for Medical Education (GMS J Med Educ) – formerly GMS Zeitschrift für Medizinische Ausbildung – publishes scientific articles on all aspects of undergraduate and graduate education in medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, pharmacy and other health professions. Research and review articles, project reports, short communications as well as discussion papers and comments may be submitted. There is a special focus on empirical studies which are methodologically sound and lead to results that are relevant beyond the respective institution, profession or country. Please feel free to submit qualitative as well as quantitative studies. We especially welcome submissions by students. It is the mission of GMS Journal for Medical Education to contribute to furthering scientific knowledge in the German-speaking countries as well as internationally and thus to foster the improvement of teaching and learning and to build an evidence base for undergraduate and graduate education. To this end, the journal has set up an editorial board with international experts. All manuscripts submitted are subjected to a clearly structured peer review process. All articles are published bilingually in English and German and are available with unrestricted open access. Thus, GMS Journal for Medical Education is available to a broad international readership. GMS Journal for Medical Education is published as an unrestricted open access journal with at least four issues per year. In addition, special issues on current topics in medical education research are also published. Until 2015 the journal was published under its German name GMS Zeitschrift für Medizinische Ausbildung. By changing its name to GMS Journal for Medical Education, we wish to underline our international mission.
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
京公网安备 11010802042870号
