Knowledge and attitudes of health profession's students about inter-relationship of communication gap with generation gap

Abstract

Aim: To find out the knowledge and attitude of health profession's students about communication gap and generation gap and their co-relation. Materials and Methods: A debate was organized for 200 health profession's students between the age group of 18–24 years to know their knowledge, attitude, views, and ideas about “Generation gap”, “communication gap,” and co-relation of the two. Students not only actively participated in the debate and discussed various points related to this topic but also shared their ideas on “how to solve this communication gap due to the generation gap.” Result: Prevalidated questions were asked to 200 health profession's students. Various factors responsible for communication gap and generation gap were discussed. Knowledge and attitude of health profession's students gave important clues for developing effective communication and also to improve the generation gap. Conclusion: One of the important barriers in achieving effective communication is a generation gap. As per the opinion of health profession's students, to solve this problem, one has to be a good listener, share ideas and problems, seek advice from parents, treat elders with respect, and give equal importance to career and family. Thus knowledge and attitude of health profession's students can be helpful in achieving good communication skills in the context of medical and other healthcare practice for professional-patient interaction and within the healthcare team.