Measuring communication skills of medical students to patients with cancer

Progress in improving doctors' communication skills has been hampered by a lack of consistent theoretical underpinning. Resource constraints have cont ributed other problems, including difficulties in evaluating medical studen ts' communication skills. Although use of unpaid evaluators has helped to a lleviate these, differences between evaluator groups have led to a second g eneration of problems concerning accuracy and reliability. To address these issues, a conceptual clarification of doctor-patient commu nication is suggested. On its basis, seven communication skills needed by d octors are identified and chen operationalized as a questionnaire measure o f medical students' communication skills when talking to patients about can cer. An unusual feature is that the questionnaire can be used by lay and pr ofessional racers with only 1 hour of training. An empirical study was unde rtaken of the properties of the questionnaire. Generalizability theory, as well as more conventional approaches to reliability was used to examine sys temacically the differences between simulator patient, psychologist and gen eral practitioner raters. Results suggested that the questionnaire was of satisfactory overall reliab ility and validity. An unexpected finding was that more efficient future us e of it might accrue if general practitioner racers are not used. Further u ses of the questionnaire in theoretical and applied fields are suggested.