Does Clinical Experience positively Influence Practitioners' Communication Skills? A Questionnaire Study Comparing Third and Fourth year osteopathy students.
Item
- Title
- Does Clinical Experience positively Influence Practitioners' Communication Skills? A Questionnaire Study Comparing Third and Fourth year osteopathy students.
- Author(s)
- Hill, W
- Abstract
- Background: Effective communication skills between healthcare professionals and their patients, has frequently been documented as having a therapeutic effect. Because of this, the medical establishment has implemented the teaching of communication skills in medical degrees However, within osteopathic education, the teaching of such skills is somewhat ambiguous Our aim is to see if clinical experience is sufficient at improving communication skills. Objective: to determine whether or not clinical experience was seen to positively influence a student’s communication skills. Design: Questionnaire study. A quantitative approach. Method: Year 3 and year 4 osteopathy students were invited to complete a self-assessment communication skills questionnaire after a patient encounter, based on their perceived communication skills Data was captured using Google Forms and then exported into Microsoft Excel for coding and further statistical analysis The Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare significances between year groups. Results: No significant differences were observed between year groups. Discussion: Results from this study failed to show an obvious improvement in communication skills between year three and year four students It appears that clinical experience does not automatically improve these skills, and it seems others have found similar findings Perhaps of greater interest are the positive effects of having had communication skills training Moreover, the process of self-assessment in an acquired skill in itself, proving that those who have developed this tend to be more accurate when assessing their skills Ultimately, this may have been a downfall in this study, that students' responses might not have been accurate. However, self-reflection as a process appears to be a positive experience for students. Conclusion: It should not be assumed that non-technical skills, such as communication improve with experience alone. There appears to be a consistent agreement that a deliberate praxis to learn and update such skills is generally beneficial for the practitioner.
- presented at
- European School of Osteopathy
- Date Accepted
- 2015
- Date Submitted
- 2.12.2016 16:54:59
- Type
- osteo_thesis
- Language
- English
- Submitted by:
- 62
- Pub-Identifier
- 15898
- Inst-Identifier
- 1229
- Keywords
- Clinical Experience; Communication Skills; self-assessment
- Recommended
- 0
- Item sets
- Thesis
Hill, W, “Does Clinical Experience positively Influence Practitioners' Communication Skills? A Questionnaire Study Comparing Third and Fourth year osteopathy students.”, Osteopathic Research Web, accessed April 23, 2025, https://library.wso.at/s/orw/item/583