Abstract
BackgroundVerbal and non-verbal communication, as well as empathy are central to patient-doctor interactions and have been associated with patients’ satisfaction. Non-verbal communication tends to override verbal messages. The aim of this study was to analyze how medical students use verbal and non-verbal communication using two different educational approaches, student role play (SRP) and actor simulated patient (ASP), and whether the non-verbal behaviour is different in the two different poses.MethodsThree raters evaluated 20 students playing the doctor role, 10 in the SRP group and 10 in the ASP group. The videos were analyzed with the Calgary-Cambridge Referenced Observation Guide (CCG) and, for a more accurate evaluation of non-verbal communication, we also evaluated signs of nervousness, and posture. Empathy was rated with the CARE questionnaire. Independent Mann Whitney U tests and Qhi square tests were performed for statistical analysis.ResultsFrom the 6 main tasks of the CCG score, we obtained higher scores in the ASP group for the task ‘Gathering information’ (p = 0.0008). Concerning the 17 descriptors of the CCG, the ASP group obtained significantly better scores for ‘Exploration of the patients’ problems to discover the biomedical perspective’ (p = 0.007), ‘Exploration of the patients’ problems to discover background information and context’ (p = 0.0004) and for ‘Closing the session – Forward planning’ (p = 0.02). With respect to non-verbal behaviour items, nervousness was significantly higher in the ASP group compared to the SRP group (p < 0.0001). Concerning empathy, no differences were found between the SRP and ASP groups.ConclusionsMedical students displayed differentiated verbal and non-verbal communication behaviour during the two communication skills training methodologies. These results show that both methodologies have certain advantages and that more explicit non-verbal communication training might be necessary in order to raise students’ awareness for this type of communication and increase doctor-patient interaction effectiveness.
Highlights
Verbal and non-verbal communication, as well as empathy are central to patient-doctor interactions and have been associated with patients’ satisfaction
Communication skills differences between student role play (SRP) and actor simulated patient (ASP) groups Independent t-tests were performed in order to identify if the 2 groups SRP (n = 10) and ASP (n = 10) yielded different Cambridge Referenced Observation Guide (CCG) scores (Table 1)
With respect to non-verbal behaviour items, nervousness was significantly higher in the ASP group compared to the SRP group (p < 0.0001, effect size d = 1.25, Power (1-β err prob) = 0.75, SRP group mean = 1.33 ± 0.54, ASP group mean = 2.36 ± 1.03)
Summary
Verbal and non-verbal communication, as well as empathy are central to patient-doctor interactions and have been associated with patients’ satisfaction. Non-verbal communication tends to override verbal messages. Effective communication and empathy are central to patient-doctor interactions and have been shown to be associated with patients’ satisfaction, disclosure, compliance, and with the outcomes of the medical process [1,2,3]. Non-verbal messages tend to override the verbal messages and as reported by Mehrabian and Ferris, the impact of the verbal communication represents only 7% from the total impact of communication [6, 7]. Empathy is a critical point of the communication process and is associated with patients’ satisfaction and outcomes [9,10,11]
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