The Medical Interaction Process System (MIPS): an instrument for analysinginterviews of oncologists and patients with cancer

The increase in communication skills training for doctors has led to the ne ed for more effective means of evaluation. Analysis of video and audiotaped consultations using systems of interaction analysis can provide the traine e with in-depth feedback about their communication skills. Most interaction process systems were designed for use in primary care and recent research has questioned the applicability of these systems in medical specialties su ch as oncology. We describe the development of a new instrument, the Medical Interaction Pr ocess System (MIPS) for use in teaching communication skills and empirical research in medical encounters, particularly, between doctors and patients with cancer. A comparison of the MIPS and comparable behaviour categories of another wid ely used system (the Roter Interaction Analysis System) was made to test co nvergent validity. Pearson correlation coefficients suggested a good level of concurrence between the two systems. Interceder reliability tests were c arried out between two coders at two separate time periods. Both of these i ndicated good reliability for the majority of categories. The two major advantages of the MIPS over other coding systems are: (1) the system allows for sequential and parallel coding, thus avoiding major codi ng conflicts and (2) the design of the coding sheet results in a multidimen sional view of the consultation without data loss. We believe that the MIPS yields useful information for teaching doctors communication skills and al so provides an objective method for evaluating the effectiveness of communi cation skills courses. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.