Communication skills of medical students during the OSCE: Gender-specific differences in a longitudinal trend study

Abstract

BackgroundCommunication skills are essential in a patient-centred health service and therefore in medical teaching. Although significant differences in communication behaviour of male and female students are known, gender differences in the performance of students are still under-reported. The aim of this study was to analyse gender differences in communication skills of medical students in the context of an OSCE exam (OSCE = Objective Structured Clinical Examination).MethodsIn a longitudinal trend study based on seven semester-cohorts, it was analysed if there are gender differences in medical students’ communication skills. The students (self-perception) and standardized patients (SP) (external perception) were asked to rate the communication skills using uniform questionnaires. Statistical analysis was performed by using frequency analyses and t-tests in SPSS 21.ResultsAcross all ratings in the self- and the external perception, there was a significant gender difference in favour of female students performing better in the dimensions of empathy, structure, verbal expression and non-verbal expression. The results of male students deteriorated across all dimensions in the external perception between 2011 and 2014.Discussion & conclusionIt is important to consider if gender-specific teaching should be developed, considering the reported differences between female and male students.

Simultaneous Evaluation of Communication Skills by Standardized Patients and Medical Evaluators

“…Thus, differences between 41.9 and 42.5 points (Table 2) have very little educational meaning. Similar data have also been reported by other studies (5,(9)(10)(11)(12)(13), although most of these analyzed the role of SPs as evaluators of clinical matters. Table 2.…”

“…In conclusion, SPs and Es evaluated communication skills similarly in an OSCE setting, suggesting that health-related professionals can be used as an alternative to SPs, thus helping to lower economic costs. Our study also found a gender difference, in favor of women, in the evaluation of communications skills by both groups, thus suggesting that women demonstrate superior skills to men, which confirms recent studies (5).…”

“…Thus, women were evaluated significantly better for the items Optimism, Interest and Empathy, whereas men were evaluated better for Listening and Contact. A similar result was obtained by Graf et al (5) who reported a significant gender difference in favor of female students in the empathy dimension, along with more positive statements.…”

“…Some studies have suggested that SP examiners are at least as reliable and "accurate" as physician examiners in evaluating student performance, while others have found SP raters to be inferior (4-6). Our second aim was to assess the possible existence of gender differences in the communication skills evaluation process, an issue which has already been explored in some depth (4)(5).…”

Simulated patient and role play methodologies for communication skills and empathy training of undergraduate medical students

“…As it is well known that communication styles of female physicians interacting with patients are consistently different from their male counterparts, we also compared the male and female students participating in the study [24].…”