Psychosocial abilities of first-year medical students participating in a clinical communication course.
BACKGROUND
Responding to psychosocial needs of patients is an important element of medical practice and is dependent on the psychosocial abilities of the physician. One of the aims of teaching doctor-patient communication in medical schools is to strengthen these qualities. We assessed changes in the psychosocial abilities of first-year medical students participating in a year-long clinical communication course.


METHODS
Sixty-eight first-year medical students and 49 students from the Medical Laboratories School (control group) participated in the study. The students completed, once each at the beginning (October) and at the end (July) of the course, a structured questionnaire that included a psychosocial abilities measure and sociodemographic details.


RESULTS
No significant differences were found between the two groups of students regarding their sociodemographic characteristics. Furthermore, the medical students and the control group did not differ significantly in their psychosocial abilities mean scores at the beginning of the communication course (baseline). At the end of the course, a significant improvement in mean scores was found among medical students compared with an insignificant decline among the control group.


CONCLUSIONS
Participation in an extensive clinical doctor-patient communication course guided by multidisciplinary teams may strengthen psychosocial abilities of medical students. The study needs to be replicated with a larger sample size.
Department of Sociology of Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, PO Box 653, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel. bachner@bgu.ac.il
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Bachner
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Castel
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Kushnir
D002983:Clinical Competence; D003142:Communication; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D013337:Students, Medical; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires