Impact of tailored feedback in assessment of communication skills for medical students

Abstract

BackgroundFinding out the effective ways of teaching and assessing communication skills remain a challenging part of medication education. This study aims at exploring the usefulness and effectiveness of having additional feedback using qualitative analysis in assessment of communication skills in undergraduate medical training. We also determined the possibilities of using qualitative analysis in developing tailored strategies for improvement in communication skills training.MethodsThis study was carried out on medical students (n=87) undergoing their final year clinical performance examination on communication skills using standardized patient by video-recording and transcribing their performances. Video-recordings of 26 students were randomly selected for qualitative analysis, and additional feedback was provided. We assessed the level of acceptance of communication skills scores between the study and nonstudy group and within the study group, before and after receiving feedback based on qualitative analysis.ResultsThere was a statistically significant increase in the level of acceptance of feedback after delivering additional feedback using qualitative analysis, where the percentage of agreement with feedback increased from 15.4 to 80.8% (p<0.001).ConclusionsIncorporating feedback based on qualitative analysis for communication skills assessment gives essential information for medical students to learn and self-reflect, which could potentially lead to improved communication skills. As evident from our study, feedback becomes more meaningful and effective with additional feedback using qualitative analysis.

Hotspots in research on the measurement of medical students’ clinical competence from 2012-2016 based on co-word analysis

“…The sixth co-word cluster contained terms of measurement contents (“communication”, “physician-patient relations”) and methods (“patient simulation”). These three high-frequency terms occurred simultaneously in the articles, revealing that researchers were interested in the relationship between patients and medical students, especially the assessment of communication skills by patient simulation [ 19 ]. From the above results, six hotspots of clinical competence measurement were found, as follows: [ 1 ] the impact of curriculums on clinical competence, [ 2 ] development of new methods of clinical competence measurement, [ 3 ] students’ feedback on clinical competence measurement, [ 4 ] the effect of computer simulation training on clinical competence, [ 5 ] students’ clinical performance in the important steps of learning, and [ 6 ] communication skills measured by patient simulation.…”

<p>Advocating a bottom-up approach in the teaching of feedback skills to medical students [Letter]</p>

“…Application of emotional intelligence could also avoid “negative emotional reactions such as denial and defense,” experienced by some of the teachers in Jamshidian et al’s study,1 and allow clinical teachers to reflect on feedback content objectively. The delivery of additional feedback using qualitative analysis has also improved the level of acceptance of feedback in medical students 5. Such tailoring and personalization of feedback to the recipients’ traits may reduce the likelihood of emotional volatility, create a positive environment, and strengthen the quality of feedback and mutual respect and understanding between provider and recipient, to increase learning and improve patient care.…”

Remote assessment via video evaluation (RAVVE): a pilot study to trial video-enabled peer feedback on clinical performance

“…Video-based feedback has been researched previously at our institution to evaluate its effectiveness in teaching medical students. In this context, studies found that video annotated feedback helped students identify specific areas of strength and weakness and increased the overall acceptance of scores [6, 9]. Additional research has demonstrated positive outcomes in the use of video-based assessments of medical students by physician mentors, including enrichment of students’ learning from clinical settings, exposure of students to a larger number of mentors, and improving the ability of students to recall their own performances [10].…”