Interactional skills training in undergraduate medical education: ten principles for guiding future research

Abstract

Background High-quality healthcare requires practitioners who have technical competence and communication skills. Medical practitioners need interpersonal skills for gathering and transferring information to their patients, in addition to general consultation skills. Appropriate information gathering increases the likelihood of an accurate diagnosis. Transferring information should be performed in a way that promotes patient understanding and increases the probability of adherence to physician recommendations. This applies to: (i) primary prevention such as smoking cessation; (ii) secondary prevention including preparation for potentially threatening interventions; and (iii) tertiary care, including breaking bad news regarding treatment and prognosis. Discussion This debate paper delineates factors associated with undergraduate medical communication skills training where robust research is needed. Ten key principles are presented and discussed, which are intended to guide future research in this field and ensure high quality studies with methodological rigour are conducted. Summary The literature on communication skills training for medical school undergraduates continues to grow. A considerable portion of this output is represented by commentaries, descriptive studies or poorly designed interventions. As with any field of healthcare, quality research interventions are required to ensure practice is grounded in high-level evidence.

Development and pilot test of ComCare – a questionnaire for quick assessment of communicative and social competences in medical students after interviews with simulated patients

“…Medical schools are increasingly providing longitudinal communication curricula as suggested by the NKLM [ http://www.nklm.de , retrieved 29.3.2020] in undergraduate and postgraduate learning, where basic communication techniques are studied earlier [ 52 ], [ 53 ] and communication trainings, which progressively require interpersonal skills, are scheduled later [ 53 ], [ 54 ]. To emphasize that communication and interpersonal skills are connected, the term “interactional skills” is being used and recommendations for future research in this field have been given [ 55 ]. With the ComCare questionnaire we provide an instrument for assessment and feedback that could be used in trainings for challenging or difficult conversations [ 56 ] where communication and interpersonal skills are highly required [ 57 ].…”

Construction of Evaluation Index System of General Practice Graduates' Competence

“…Among the secondary factors, experts agreed that "communication " was one of the important indicators.Good and effective communication is the basis and guarantee of increasing patients' subjective initiative.When there are potential con icts with patients or family members, doctors are also required to have a skilled communication and coordination ability to resolve con icts.Therefore, good communication skills are an effective way to improve the service quality of GPs [18] .…”

Barriers to obtaining reliable results from evaluations of teaching quality in undergraduate medical education

“…However, such research is rarely conducted in the context of medical education. Medical education is different from other higher education programmes in many ways, including the course structure, instructional design, method selection and teacher arrangement, which will affect course evaluations [12][13][14]. For example, it is quite common for medical students to have a different lecturer for almost every session during the pre-clinical years.…”