| Title |
Can we rely on simulated patients’ satisfaction with their consultation for assessing medical students’ communication skills? A cross-sectional study
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
BMC Medical Education, December 2015
|
| DOI | 10.1186/s12909-015-0508-x |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
T. Gude, H. Grimstad, A. Holen, T. Anvik, A. Baerheim, O. B. Fasmer, P Hjortdahl, P. Vaglum |
| Abstract |
In medical education, teaching methods offering intensive practice without high utilization of faculty resources are needed. We investigated whether simulated patients' (SPs') satisfaction with a consultation could predict professional observers' assessment of young doctors' communication skills. This was a comparative cross-sectional study of 62 videotaped consultations in a general practice setting with young doctors who were finishing their internship. The SPs played a female patient who had observed blood when using the toilet, which had prompted a fear of cancer. Immediately afterwards, the SP rated her level of satisfaction with the consultation, and the scores were dichotomized into satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Professional observers viewed the videotapes and assessed the doctors' communication skills using the Arizona Communication Interview Rating Scale (ACIR). Their ratings of communication skills were dichotomized into acceptable versus unacceptable levels of competence. The SPs' satisfaction showed a predictive power of 0.74 for the observers' assessment of the young doctors and whether they reached an acceptable level of communication skills. The SPs' dissatisfaction had a predictive power of 0.71 for the observers' assessment of an unacceptable communication level. The two assessment methods differed in 26 % of the consultations. When SPs felt relief about their cancer concern after the consultation, they assessed the doctors' skills as satisfactory independent of the observers' assessment. Accordance between the dichotomized SPs' satisfaction score and communication skills assessed by observers (using the ACIR) was in the acceptable range. These findings suggest that SPs' satisfaction scores may provide a reliable source for assessing communication skills in educational programs for medical trainees (students and young doctors). Awareness of the patient's concerns seems to be of vital importance to patient satisfaction. |
X Demographics
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Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 1 | 50% |
| Unknown | 1 | 50% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 2 | 100% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 80 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Germany | 1 | 1% |
| Switzerland | 1 | 1% |
| Unknown | 78 | 98% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Master | 16 | 20% |
| Researcher | 14 | 18% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 8 | 10% |
| Professor > Associate Professor | 6 | 8% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 4 | 5% |
| Other | 15 | 19% |
| Unknown | 17 | 21% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Medicine and Dentistry | 25 | 31% |
| Nursing and Health Professions | 14 | 18% |
| Social Sciences | 9 | 11% |
| Psychology | 5 | 6% |
| Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 2 | 3% |
| Other | 7 | 9% |
| Unknown | 18 | 23% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 21 January 2016.
All research outputs
#15,351,847
of 22,835,198 outputs
Outputs from BMC Medical Education
#2,261
of 3,323 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#227,954
of 388,246 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Medical Education
#50
of 67 outputs
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