The Effectiveness of Communication Skills of Pre-medical Students.
- Author:
Sun KIM
1
;
Soo Jung LEE
;
Chang Jin CHOI
;
Yera HUR
Author Information
1. Department of Medical Education, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea. shua@catholic.ac.kr
- Publication Type:Original Article
- Keywords:
Communications skills;
Pre-medical students;
Pre/post assessment
- MeSH:
Curriculum;
Education, Medical;
Humans;
Students, Medical
- From:Korean Journal of Medical Education
2006;18(2):171-182
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:Korean
-
Abstract:
PURPOSE: Communication skills are essential skills which medical students need to acquire in order to become a doctor. More attention is being given to the subject but not many studies have been done in the medical education field. As communication skills are provided to students as a subject in medical educational curriculum, the assessment of its effectiveness needs to be undertaken. METHODS: In the year 2005 and 2006, second year pre-medical students at The Catholic University College of Medicine took 'Communication Skills' course in total, 180 second year pre-medical students' survey results were used in the evaluation of the study question. The instrument used in the study was the modified and translated version of 'Beyer-Fetzer's Essential Elements of Communication Skills Assessment Sheet.' The assessment sheets were used as the pre-test and post-test to analyse the differences, which were put through the paired t-test. RESULTS: All categories of communication skills showed an improvement. For year 2005, meaningful differences were shown in 'opening the discussion (p=.005)' and 'sharing information (p=.008)', whereas in 2006, improvements were shown in all areas. CONCLUSION: From the result, it is clear that in order to create an effective communication skills program, the content should be more structured and focused on the program objectives.
