Purpose

Clinical communication skills (CCS) are fundamental to good quality health care and health outcomes, but remain a problematic area for both students and qualified health care professionals, including Physiotherapy.  As CCS can be taught and developed, the aim of this study was to propose a practical framework for the teaching of verbal and written CCS to undergraduate health care students as an integral part of their learning.

Relevance

The complexity of acquiring adequate CCS to deliver good quality health care, is however further complicated by attaining and integrating all of the other required clinical skills as well as professional attitudes to enable health care students and professionals to effectively integrate knowledge with practice, within the teaching process.  A number of strategies have been described for the teaching of CCS (also in Physiotherapy training) and include, amongst others, role playing, video demonstrations, audio-visual aids, simulated/standardised patients, clinical training, peer evaluation and group interactions.  The most appropriate method of delivery is carefully selected within the teaching process to address the teaching of a specific communication skill in order for it to be learned optimally.

Methods and study participants

A sequential mixed-methods approach was followed where the first phase of the research consisted of a questionnaire survey.  Results from this survey yielded the development of an interview schedule for the second, qualitative phase of the study.

All third year physiotherapy students from the University of the Free State (UFS) who engaged in clinical practice for the first time in the research year, was included in the study sample (n=35).

Analysis

Descriptive statistics was calculated for the quantitative data, whilst the qualitative data was initially transcribed verbatim from the voice recordings.  The researchers utilised inductive coding to analyse transcribed data.

The study was approved by the Ethics committee of the Faculty of Health Sciences, UFS (ECUFS Stud nr 78/2011).  After providing study participants with information letters, informed consent was obtained from all study participants for both the survey and interviews.

Results

The main problem areas with regard to CCS of health care students were identified as communication with patients, their families, the interdisciplinary team as well as written communication.  The basic principles of skills training were additionally explored and identified the ideal progression of skills from a theoretical level towards the clinical application thereof.

Conclusion and implications

Integration of this information enabled the researcher to develop a practical framework for CCS training of undergraduate health care students, focusing on the problems experienced with CCS on the one hand and basic skills training principles on the other.  This framework furthermore provides a basis for research related to other problem areas of CCS, especially within the field of Physiotherapy training, and the continued development of CCS beyond undergraduate health care studies.

Acknowledgements

The undergraduate students whom assisted with the execution of this research study as well as the Biostatitian whom assisted with the analysis of the quantitative data.