Effect of the Balint group on improving the empathy and doctor-patient communication skills among medical students inclinical practice

Objectives Toexplorethe effect of the Balint group on improving the empathy and doctor-patient communication skills among medical students in clinical practice. Methods We investigated 500 clinicalmedicalstudentsin fourth grade by JSE-HP and SEGUE framework scalein Shanghai Jiao Tong uni-versity school of medicine between July 2016 and December 2016. 60 students with insufficientempathy and doctor-patient communication skills were selected randomly. These students were thanrandomly divided into the Balint group (experimental group) and the routine clinical practice group(control group). The experimen-tal group participated inthe Balint group activitiesin addition to routine clinical practice, whilethe control group only participated in routine clinical practice. After 20 weeks of the Balintgroup intervention, the two groups were invited to assess theempathy and doctor-patient communication skills again to analyze the effect of the Balintgroup on improving the empathy and doctor-patient communication ability among intern students. The evaluation result was analyzed by SPSS 22.0 software. Data comparison was conducted using pair t test, independent sample t test and χ2 testing. Results There were no statistically significant differ-ences in age, sex, whether only child or class leader and previous year theoretical exam scoresbetween the two groups (all P>0.05). For empathy, there was no statistically significant difference in terms of opinion, emotional care, empathy, and total scorebefore the routine clinical practicebetween the two groups (P>0.05) and they all improved-significantly after the routine clinical practice (all P 0.05), and they allimprovedsignificantly in all above 5 scales after the routine clinical practice (all P<0.05). While except for understanding of patients, the experimental group had higher gains in other scales than the control group (all P<0.05). Conclusion Use of the Barring group ac-tivities on the basis of routine clinical practice canimprove the empathy andthedoctor-patientcommunication skills in medical students. Key words: Balint group; Empathy; Doctor-patient communication skills