Development and preliminary evaluation of an instrument designed to assessdental students' communication skills.

The aim of this study was to develop, and assess the inter-observer reliabi lity of an instrument for evaluating dental students' communication skills. Methods used were process-tracking of interactions between experienced prac titioners and patients, development of the instrument and its simultaneous use by two researchers observing 43 third year dental students prior to com munication skills training. The results found that the instrument was appropriate for the purpose for w hich it was designed, and was easy to utilise. There were no significant di fferences between observers' total scores. Item-specific weighted kappa sco res showed almost perfect agreement between observers for all but four of t he 31 items. The lowest interobserver weighted kappa score was for the meas urement of eye contact (k = 0.60). In conclusion, assessment of communication skills is now a necessity in the undergraduate curriculum. Preliminary analysis of an instrument of communi cation skills in the dental surgery indicates that it may be possible to do this reliably.