Türkiye'de İlk ve Acil Yardım Programı Öğrencilerine Verilen İletişim Becerileri Dersinin Etkinliğinin Değerlendirilmesi

Abstract

Objective: It is especially important that communication between patients and paramedics is clear and effective as they are the first healthcare professionals to arrive at the scene of a crisis and provide emergency medical services. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a communication skills training course for paramedic students. Material and Methods: The study used one-group pretestposttest research design to determine the effectiveness of a 14-week communication skills training course on second year paramedic students attending a Vocational School of Health Services. The students completed a socio-demographic information data sheet and the Communication Skills Inventory prior to and after the communication skills course. Results: Fifty-two paramedic students participated in the study. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 25 years and they were predominantly female (75%). A paired-samples t-test was conducted to compare the scores prior to and after the communication skills training course. The results of the study showed that there was a significant increase in the participants' communication skills both on the total scores after the 14-week communication skills training course (p< 0.001) as well as on their cognition (p=0.023), emotion (p=0.028) and behaviour (p=0.002) subscale scores. The average of communication skills scores of participants before the training was X=159.88 (σ=11.46) and X ̅=165.31 (σ=11.45) after the training. Conclusion: The results suggest that the communication training course offered may be effective in increasing the paramedic students' communication skills.