Abstract

Background: Communication is a learned skill and it is a part of medical education which leads changes in clinical practice. Lack of communication between physicians, physician to nurses, and physicians to patients will produce lacunae in delivering proper patient care by misinterpretations. Hence, assessment of communication skill is a must in medical education. Aim and
Objective: The objective of the study was to assess the communication skills in the 2nd year MBBS students of Melmaruvathur Adhiparasakthi Institute of Medical Sciences (MAPIMS).
Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional study of 2 months duration. Based on the effect size of 0.54 with power of 0.80, the sample size was calculated as 43. The Institutional Ethical Committee approval and informed written consent were obtained. Forty-three 2nd year MBBS students of MAPIMS, who were attending postings (community medicine, general surgery, and obstetrics and gynecology), were included as participants of our study. The 2nd year MBBS students who were not attending the above said postings were excluded from the study. The raters assessed the communication skills of participants by validated questionnaire which contains different variables to assess the communication skills using 5-point rating scales having rating 1 = never to 5 = always. The raters were two physicians, two nurses, and two official clerks.
Results: Six raters assessed 43 participants. A total of 258 responses were obtained. Inter-rater intraclass correlation Cronbach’s alpha shows 0.636 which is an acceptable reliability measure of this study. Multiple comparisons by post hoc Scheffe test conclude that there is a significant difference among rater’s choice showing that the participants had acquired about not