Medical Students’ Viewpoint on Learning Communication Skills

Abstract

Background and Purpose: Communication skills play an important role in diagnosis, effective treatment, and patient satisfaction. We aimed to determine the attitudes of medical students towards learning communication skills in order to design related educational programs for them. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study with a sample of 200 medical students of Yazd that were selected using classified simple random sampling. The data was collected using the Communication Skills Attitude Scale (CSAS) with approved reliability (α=0.74). Data were analyzed using SPSS software. Results: The mean±SD positive, negative, and overall attitude scores of the participants were 51.17±5.65, 34.12±4.89 and 85.27 ± 6.39, respectively. Age had no influence on their attitude towards learning communication skills. Conclusions: The finding of positive attitudes toward learning communication skills suggests that students would agree with the assertion that communication skills should be an integral part of curricula. Keywords: ATTITUDE, MEDICAL STUDENTS, COMMUNICATION SKILLS