Patient-Centered Attitudes and Communication Skills in Medical Students After Clerkship

Purpose: Patient-centered communication is known to improve patient satisfaction, compliance, doctor-patient relationship, and health outcomes. The aim of this study is to evaluate patient-centered communication skills and attitudes in medical students after their clerkship. Method: To evaluate their communication skills, OSCE was performed on 114 fourth-year medical students who had completed their clerkship. After OSCE, we used structured questionnaires to survey the subjects in assessing attitudes toward communication skill learning and patient-centeredness. Results: The accomplished frequency of patient-centered communication items were as follows: allow patient’s narrative thread ($88.6{\%}$), open-to-closed-ended questions ($47.4{\%}$), discuss psychosocial and emotional factors ($36.0{\%}$), elicit patient’s concerns and perspectives ($36.0{\%}$), discuss how health problem affects patient’s daily life ($21.9{\%}$), express empathy ($14.0{\%}$), negotiate plan of action with patient ($68.4{\%}$), and ask whether patient has further issues to discuss ($33.3{\%}$). The students who did [medical service as extracurricular activity??????????] and were confident with their communication skills performed better patient-centered interviews. There was no significant relationship between medical students’ patient-centered attitudes and patient-centered OSCE scores. Conclusion: Having completed their clerkship, medical students were still unable to perform a good patient-centered interview. Current medical curriculum should teach medical students how to communicate in a patient-centered manner. The education method should focus on behavior change initiatives.

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