Teaching intercultural communication to medical undergraduate students: a pilot study

Abstract

Introduction. The globalization influences the education system, and medical education is not an exception. Along with general communication skills medical undergraduate students should demonstrate their competence in intercultural communication. The aim of the study was to implement an elective course “Intercultural Communication” in the Russian medical school and validate an adapted questionnaire to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching the course for the development of cultural awareness of students as a component of the intercultural competence. Materials and Methods. The course “Intercultural Communication” developed and implemented in the medical school included four major topics: the basics of intercultural communication; the culture and communication; the language and culture; the intercultural communication in Medicine. The adapted questionnaire to evaluate the changes in cultural awareness of students was filled in by them before and after the course studying. The questionnaire included the following parts: demographics; questions to assess attitudes towards cultural diversity; Bogardus-type questions; feedback on the questionnaire. The study results were evaluated using the descriptive and statistical analysis methods. Results. Out of 149 students, 125 (83,9%) completed the questionnaire both before and after studying the course. Statistically significant changes in students’ responses were attributed to three questions devoted to attitudes towards cultural diversity. No statistically significant changes were identified in responses to Bogardus-type questions. The majority of students (84%) commented that the questionnaire had made them think about cultural diversity and intercultural differences. Conclusion. The study showed that students’ cultural awareness changed to more positive attitude towards representatives of other cultures taking into account cultural diversity in the society including the healthcare field. However, further development of objective tools to assess the intercultural competence of students and improvement of methods to teach intercultural communication to medical and pharmaceutical undergraduate students are needed.