The Viewpoints of Clinical Faculty Members about Teaching Communication Skills to Medical Students

Introduction. The clinical competencies of a physician is usually judged based on his(her) communication skills. Teaching communication skills is one of the important subjects in medical education, whereas it has not been considered in medical education curriculum of the country. Due to the involvement of the faculty members in medical education system, their viewpoints concerning educational matters is of special importance. This study was performed to determine the faculty members' viewpoints in regard to teaching communication skills to medical students. Methods. In this descriptive-analytic study 142 faculty members from 17 departments in Medical School of Isfahan were selected by simple random sampling method. The data collection tool was a questionnaire consisted of three parts: demographic, attitude and open questions. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by experts and its reliability by split-half method. The data were analyzed according to the frequency distribution and the mean of the scores, and compared by t-test, Mann Whitny, Kruskal Wallis, ANOVA and Tokey. Results. 85% of the faculty members had a very positive attitude toward teaching communication skills to medical students. There was no difference in the attitude according to the sex of the faculty members. The younger faculties, aged between 30 and 40 years with 5 to 10 years of teaching experience, had a better attitude compared to other groups. The specialty field had no role in their attitude toward the subject. Conclusion. The views of all the faculty members about teaching communication skills regardless of their sex, age, specialty field and teaching experience was positive. Thus, teaching these skills to students as one of the formal subjects seems necessary.