Students attitude and response towards communication skills course at the College of Medicine, Taibah University

Abstract

Introduction: Effective communication skills (CS) have positive outcome on patient-care. This component of undergraduate medical curriculum is quite a neglected one and by adopting proper teaching strategies these skills can be improved. Objective: To assess the students' perception of the existing CS course at the College of Medicine Taibah University Saudi Arabia, and to evaluate their suggestions on how they want it to be. Methods: During the academic year 2011-2012, a paper-based questionnaire containing eight close-ended and three open-ended questions was administered to the 3 rd year medical students, after they had finished the CS course. The participants were informed about the survey and a verbal consent was attained. The quantitative responses were gathered by Likert-type questions and collected data was analyzed by Excel Microsoft Office 2007, while qualitative data obtained from open-ended questions generated themes which were organized in a tabulated form for further review. Results: Out of 115 students (63 females and 52 males), 109 responded (response rate of 94.7%). Qualitative responses of the survey showed that there were vague learning objectives of CS course, students demanded to eliminate didactic lectures and to add more interactive lectures, suggested more practical experience, requested to integrate CS course into other major courses with valid and reliable assessment tools. Forty three (37.3%) respondents were not clear about course objectives, 40 (34.7%) commented on the disorganization of the course, 16 (13.9%) thought that they had made any progress. Only 15 (13.0%) strongly agreed that they were benefitted from the course and 43 (37.3%) agreed about the prompt responsiveness of the instructor. Conclusion: There is a need to address students concerns regarding adoption of proper teaching strategies, experiential learning, and assessment procedures during the CS course. Clear learning objectives, personalized feedback and practical student-centered teaching strategies replacing didactic lectures might lead to improvement in our medical graduates' quality.