Abstract
BackgroundThere is a growing interest in exploring the nature of communication in veterinary medicine and understanding how veterinary practitioners communicate with their clients and other professionals. This is the first integrative review of literature on veterinary communication. Applying the PRISMA model, the PubMed, PsychInfo and ERIC databases were searched using keywords such as ‘veterinary’, ‘vet’, ‘communication’ and ‘interaction’ for related articles published between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2018.ResultsKeyword searching through the databases yielded 1572 related studies. Only 48 of these studies were included in our analysis after an in-depth review by two independent reviewers using the critical appraisal skills Programme frameworks with high inter-rater reliability (Cohen’s kappa coefficient κ > 0.8). The existing body of research on veterinary communication can be classified into three major areas: (a) client–veterinarian communication, (b) cross-disciplinary communication in a professional veterinarian team and (c) training of veterinary communication skills. This review details the complexity and heterogeneity of agenda in the field of veterinary communication. The included studies indicate that veterinary practitioners are not equipped with specific communication skills to address different agendas in veterinary communication. The veterinary curriculum should include a component on communication training that can help veterinary students acquire necessary communication skills that allow them to effectively communicate with clients and other professionalsConclusionThis review detailed the complexity of agendas in the field of veterinary communication. The results indicate that veterinary practitioners can further benefit from training on specific communication skills that address the agendas found in veterinary communication research. Furthermore, the veterinary curriculum should include a component on communication training that equips veterinary students with the necessary communication skills that allow them to effectively communicate with different stakeholders such as clients and colleagues with and across the field of veterinary science.
Highlights
There is a growing interest in exploring the nature of communication in veterinary medicine and understanding how veterinary practitioners communicate with their clients and other professionals
Included articles The initial screening revealed 1572 related article titles based on our keyword searches, 1524 of which were excluded after reviewing the abstracts as they did not fulfil the inclusion criteria
To understand the studies’ contribution to the topic of veterinary communication and the weight of evidence (WOE) of the studies, we developed an in-depth account of the 48 studies, and only those that met the inclusion criteria have been described and justified below
Summary
There is a growing interest in exploring the nature of communication in veterinary medicine and understanding how veterinary practitioners communicate with their clients and other professionals. This is the first integrative review of literature on veterinary communication. The ability to communicate effectively leads to better clinical outcomes, such as client satisfaction during the veterinary visit and increased client compliance with the veterinarian’s recommendations [2]. Failure to effectively communicate with clients may result in health, safety and legal repercussions for veterinarians [4, 5]. In the field of veterinary communication, there is a growing interest in 1) the ways of delivering difficult news to clients [7, 8], 2) the role of communication skills in the veterinary education curriculum [9,10,11] and 3) the application of clientcentred communication approach within the veterinarian–client relationship [12,13,14]
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