Communication Skills Training and Patients' Satisfaction

Effective physician-patient encounters require the doctor to have consulting skills that facilitate communication flow. When adequate communication does not occur, patients express dissatisfaction with their medical interactions. Many medical students show interview behaviors that may not contribute to patients' satisfaction. Poor communication skills reduce the reliability of elicited medical information and lead to reduced satisfaction for both patients and students. In the present study, a communication skills training course was evaluated using ratings of students' videotaped history-taking interviews with patients and patients' satisfaction ratings. Trained students showed significantly improved consultation skills and techniques compared with a group of control students who displayed few changes in behavior over the course of the study. Satisfaction ratings given by patients of students improved significantly after training, whereas ratings given by patients of control group students decreased over the same period.