BACKGROUND The changing trends of the society and revisions to medical education have changed the way medical students are trained to adroitly care for patients hence, patient centered care has become need of today's society and communication skills are imperative in developing patient physician relationship. Increasingly, simulations are being used to aid medical students to incorporate theoretical knowledge into practice. There are innumerable studies regarding communication skills in terms of reliability, validity and feasibility but no such study has been documented using simulated patient's feedback in improving communication skills in Pakistan. The aim of this study is to explore whether simulated patients' feedback improves the communication skills of undergraduate medical students. METHODS During a randomized control trail a group of eighty students in the final year clerkship at Al-Nafees Medical College have participated in pre-post Objective Structured Clinical Exam (OSCE) on communication skills. The students were selected through convenience sampling technique. Four Objective Structured Clinical Exam (OSCE) stations based on different scenarios of communication skills were developed. Each station of fifteen minutes duration was assessed by both simulated patients and faculty using a validated tool LCSAS (Liverpool Communication Skills Assessment Scale). The difference between the pre and post-tests of two groups was explored by applying independent t-test. Cronbach's alpha was used to check the reliability of scores and effect size was calculated. RESULTS Results of this study have showed that there is significant improvement in communication skills after receiving feedback from simulated patients (p value ≤0.05) was observed. An overall Cronbach α = 0.83 on LCSAS reveal a high internal consistency and there was adequate demonstration of effect size(r = 0.8). CONCLUSION The results on the scores of the students on the Liverpool Communication Skills Assessment Scale confirm that simulated patient's feedback is essential to enhance the communication skills of the medical students. This study offers significant evidence towards successful conduction of a formal communication skills development initiative at Al-Nafees Medical College using simulated patient feedback during teaching and assessments.

中文翻译：

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模拟患者的反馈，以提高业务员的沟通能力。

背景技术社会的变化趋势和医学教育的修订已经改变了训练医学生对患者进行专业护理的方式，因此，以患者为中心的护理已成为当今社会的需要，并且沟通技巧对于发展患者与医师之间的关系至关重要。越来越多地使用模拟来帮助医学生将理论知识纳入实践。关于可靠性，有效性和可行性方面的交流技能方面有无数的研究，但是没有使用模拟患者的反馈来改善巴基斯坦的交流技能的文献记录。这项研究的目的是探讨模拟患者的反馈是否能提高医学生的交流能力。方法在随机对照试验过程中，一组80名学生在纳菲斯医学院（Al-Nafees Medical College）的最后一年的工作中，参加了有关沟通技巧的事后客观结构化临床考试（OSCE）。通过便利抽样技术选择了学生。根据沟通技能的不同情况，开发了四个客观结构化临床考试（OSCE）站。模拟患者和教职员工均使用经过验证的工具LCSAS（利物浦沟通技能评估量表）评估每十五分钟的停留时间。通过应用独立的t检验探索两组的前测和后测之间的差异。使用克伦巴赫（Cronbach）的alpha值检查分数的可靠性，并计算效果大小。结果这项研究的结果表明，在接受模拟患者的反馈后，沟通技巧有了显着改善（p值≤0.05）。LCSAS的总体Cronbachα= 0.83显示出较高的内部一致性，并且有充分的证据表明效应大小（r = 0.8）。结论利物浦沟通技巧评估量表上学生分数的结果证实，模拟患者的反馈对于提高医学生的沟通技巧至关重要。这项研究为Al-Nafees医学院在教学和评估过程中使用模拟的患者反馈，成功开展了正式的沟通技巧发展计划提供了重要证据。