Do Personal Characteristics Related to Breaking Bad News Influence Students' Communication Skills?

Abstract

Purpose: Delivering bad news is a task that occurs in most medical practices, rendering communication skills essential to competent patient care. The purpose of this study was to identify factors that are associated with scores on an assessment of medical students' communication skills in delivering bad news to help develop more effective curricula to enhance these essential skills. Methods: One hundred fifty-four fourth-year medical students at Pusan National University were included. Skills for delivering bad news were assessed using the SPIKES protocol in the CPX. The students were categorized into three main groups according to total scores: ‘Exceeds expectations(E)’, ‘Meets expectations(M)’, and ‘Needs development(N)’. Personal experiences with misfortune and attitudes toward breaking bad news were surveyed, and school records were collected. The differences between the E and N groups were analyzed based on performance test and survey. Results: Compared with students in the N group, E group students acquired significantlyhigher scores on the items of Perception, Invitation, a division of Knowledge, Empathy and Strategy, and Summary but not on Setting and a part of Knowledge. E group students had better records in classes and clerkships. There were no differences in personal experiences and attitudes toward breaking bad news between the groups. Conclusion: Personal experience with delivering bad news does not guarantee better communication, and attitudes toward this task do not influence student performance. We expect that deliberate educational programs will have a positive impact on improving communication skills for delivering bad news.