Assessing communication skills in dietetic consultations: the development of the reliable and valid DIET‐COMMS tool

Abstract

DIET-COMMS is a short, user-friendly, reliable and valid tool for measuring communication skills in patient consultations with both pre- and post-registration dietitians. Additional work is required to develop a training package for assessors and to identify how DIET-COMMS assessment can acceptably be incorporated into practice.

Advancing practice in dietitians’ communication and nutrition counselling skills: a workplace education program

“…Several studies, including the present one, have indicated a deficit in communication skills training throughout university . Current dietetic curriculums do place a larger emphasis on communication skills to complement the teaching of nutrition science .…”

“…The program was developed through a review of international dietetic associations competency standards available on communication (18)(19)(20)(21) and relevant literature on this topic (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(22)(23)(24) . Techniques from the theories of Motivational Interviewing (9,15,25,26) , Solution-Focused Therapy (27) , Narrative Therapy (22) , Goal Setting Theory (23) and the Trans-theoretical Health model (24) were included in the education program.…”

“…With the increasing emphasis on dietitians' communication and nutrition counselling skills and their ability to facilitate rapport building and person-centred care, some tools have been proposed to evaluate these skills (5,16) . Lu and Dollahite (5) produced a 25-item Dietitians Counselling Self-Efficacy Scale and Whitehead et al (15) created the DIET-COMMS tool comprising 20 items relevant to optimal nutrition counselling skills.…”

Changing dietary behaviour: the role and development of practitioner communication

“…Successful implementation of these could support dietitians to meet their professional requirements (5) and present guidance (9,10,12) . Ethical approval was obtained from the University of Nottingham Medical School Ethics Committee (C/9/ 2007) (13) and (C/2/2009) (54) .…”

“…However all of these research teams recognised the need for further development before their tools could be used to assess the skills of dietitians with confidence (55)(56)(57) . More recently Whitehead et al (54) have developed and validated a tool, DIET-COMMS, for this purpose. DIET-COMMS is a simple form containing twenty items which cover the content of a dietetic consultation and the CSBC which are used within that.…”