A STUDY ON ATTITUDE OF MEDICAL STUDENTS TOWARDS LEARNING OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS

BACKGROUND: Effective physician – patient communication is very important to positive health outcomes. Assessment of attitude of medical students towards learning communication skills may help medical educators to devise effective plans to orient the students towards learning communication skills. Owing to the scarcity of data in Indian context, the present study aimed to assess the attitude of medical students towards learning communication skills at a private medical college in Pondicherry, India. OBJECTIVES: 1. To assess the attitude of medical students towards learning communication skills. 2. To compare the results of attitude scores among the medical students. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study involving 300 undergraduate medical students involving both male and female, in the age groups of 18-23 years were selected and were divided into five groups depending on their year of study. Data was collected using communication skills attitude scale (CSAS), which consists of 26 items, 13 indicative of positive attitude and 13 indicative of negative attitude toward learning communication skills. The positive and negative attitude scale scores were calculated and compared among different groups using SPSS software version 22. P < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. RESULTS: The mean scores for Positive attitude scale (PAS) and Negative attitude scale (NAS) of the medical students were 51.7±6.92 and 29.8±5.98 respectively. There was no statistically significant gender difference in the PAS and NAS scores. However significant differences were observed between the groups. First year medical students had a significantly lower PAS and high NAS scores compared to the other groups (p < 0.0001). CONCLUSION: Medical students have strong positive attitudes towards learning communication skills; hence communication skill training programs may be incorporated in the undergraduate medical curriculum. However negative attitudes should not be ignored, as they may subdue the importance of such programs. Further difference in experiences of interaction with patients does interfere with the perception of the importance of learning communication skills.