title: Teaching communication skills to hospice teams: comparing the effectiveness of a communication skills laboratory with in-person, second life, and phone role-playing.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Communication skills are critical in hospice care but challenging to teach. Therefore, a hospice agency developed a communication skills laboratory for nurses and social workers.
  
  
  METHODS
  Learners role-played 3 common hospice scenarios. The role-play modalities were in-person, Second Life, and telephone. Learners were scored on 4 communication aspects.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Learners in all modalities rated the laboratory as very effective. However, learners in the Second Life and phone modality showed greater improvements from scene 1 to 3 than those in the in-person modality. There were no significant differences in improvement between the Second Life and phone modalities.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Results support the effectiveness of this communication skills laboratory while using different teaching modalities and show phone and Second Life role-plays were more effective than an in-person role-play.
authors.affiliation: Education Department, Hospice of the Valley, Phoenix, AZ, USA ghamilton@hov.org.
authors.forename: Gillian
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hamilton
authors.affiliation: Education Department, Hospice of the Valley, Phoenix, AZ, USA.
authors.forename: Rosio
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ortega
authors.affiliation: Education Department, Hospice of the Valley, Phoenix, AZ, USA.
authors.forename: Vicki
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Hochstetler
authors.affiliation: Education Department, Hospice of the Valley, Phoenix, AZ, USA.
authors.forename: Kristen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Pierson
authors.affiliation: Columbia University, Teacher's College, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Peiyi
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Columbia University, Teacher's College, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lowes
mesh_terms: D002983:Clinical Competence; D003142:Communication; D006738:Hospices / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D007318:Inservice Training / Q000379:methods*; D007858:Learning; D008611:Mentors; D009726:Nurses; D010348:Patient Care Team; D012381:Role Playing; D012947:Social Work / Q000193:education; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods*; D014584:User-Computer Interface
keywords: Second Life; communication in hospice; communication skills; hospice; medical education; role-plays; teaching modalities