THE DEVELOPMENT AND PARTIAL ASSESSMENT OF THE MEDICAL COMMUNICATION COMPETENCE SCALE

The purpose of this research was to develop and partially assess a sel f-report scale for measuring doctors' and patients' perceptions of sel f-communication and other-communication competence during a medical in terview. Previous research into the components of communication compet ence and medical discourse were used to develop the Medical Communicat ion Competence Scale (MCCS). It was hypothesized that the items of the MCCS would form four clusters: information giving, information seekin g, information verifying, and socioemotional communication. The cluste r analysis results provided support for the hypothesis. Results of sev eral other analyses provided additional support for the validity of th e MCCS.