title: Psychometric properties of the Calgary Cambridge guides to assess communication skills of undergraduate medical students.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study was to analyse the psychometric properties of the short version of the Calgary Cambridge Guides and to decide whether it can be recommended for use in the assessment of communications skills in young undergraduate medical students.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using a translated version of the Guide, 30 members from the Department of General Practice rated 5 videotaped encounters between students and simulated patients twice. Item analysis should detect possible floor and/or ceiling effects. The construct validity was investigated using exploratory factor analysis. Intra-rater reliability was measured in an interval of 3 months, inter-rater reliability was assessed by the intraclass correlation coefficient.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The score distribution of the items showed no ceiling or floor effects. Four of the five factors extracted from the factor analysis represented important constructs of doctor-patient communication The ratings for the first and second round of assessing the videos correlated at 0.75 (p<0.0001). Intraclass correlation coefficients for each item ranged were moderate and ranged from 0.05 to 0.57.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Reasonable score distributions of most items without ceiling or floor effects as well as a good test-retest reliability and construct validity recommend the C-CG as an instrument for assessing communication skills in undergraduate medical students. Some deficiencies in inter-rater reliability are a clear indication that raters need a thorough instruction before using the C-CG.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Practice, Family Medicine, University of Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Simmenroth-Nayda
authors.affiliation: Department of General Practice, Family Medicine, University of Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Heinemann
authors.affiliation: Department of General Practice, Family Medicine, University of Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Catharina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Nolte
authors.affiliation: Department of General Practice, Family Medicine, University of Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fischer
authors.affiliation: Department of General Practice, Family Medicine, University of Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Himmel
mesh_terms: D002983:Clinical Competence; D003142:Communication; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000379:methods*; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015588:Observer Variation; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013337:Students, Medical
keywords: Undergraduate medical education; observer variation; physician-patient relations; questionnaires; teaching