. Amandeep Singh; . Piyush Ranjan; . Archana Kumar; . Siddharth Sarkar; . Tanveer Kaur; . Ramesh Aggarwal; . Ashish Datt Upadhyay; . Biswaroop Chakrawarty; . Jamshed Nayer; . Mohit Joshi; . Avinash Chakrawarty
Volume 12, Issue 11 , December 2022, , Pages 1-8
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The study was conducted to assess the different components of communicationskills and barriers to practicing good communication skills among resident doctors in a health ...
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BACKGROUND: The study was conducted to assess the different components of communicationskills and barriers to practicing good communication skills among resident doctors in a health caresetting.MATERIALS AND METHODS: A web‑based cross‑sectional survey was performed, and datawere collected using a pre‑validated questionnaire with a Cronbach’s alpha (0.88). A total of 431responses were statistically analyzed. Chi‑square test was used to associate the socio‑demographicsand communication skills. Regression analysis was conducted to analyze the association betweenvarious communication domains and barriers, which were adjusted for potential confounders suchas age and gender.RESULTS: Resident doctors have differential levels of competencies in each domain of communicationskills. Around two‑thirds of the residents did not practice good communication skills while breakingthe bad news and reported poor para‑verbal skills. Some of the most common barriers to practicinggood communication skills were found to be an infrastructural deficit, lack of time, and long workinghours. These barriers significantly affected the communication skills such as para‑verbal skills {[‑0.32;P < 0.01; C.I (‑0.54 to ‑0.09), [‑0.27, P < 0.05, C.I (‑0.54 to. 004)], [‑0.32, P < 0.01, (0.07–0.56)]}, theability to break bad news {[‑0.42, P < 0.01, (‑0.73 to ‑0.11)], [‑0.35, P < 0.05, (‑0.75 to ‑0.35)], [0.48,P < 0.01, (0.12–0.84)]}, and communication with patients/attendants {[0.39, P < 0.01, C.I (‑0.71to ‑0.06)], [‑0.88, P < 0.001, C.I (‑1.2 to ‑0.48)], [‑0.88, P < 0.001, C.I (‑1.2 to ‑0.48)]} after adjustmentfor confounding such as age and gender.CONCLUSION: There is a scope for improvement in practicing good communication skills withpatients, among the residents doctors in India. Structured modules for training and evaluation shouldbe implemented in the medical curriculum.
