Evaluation of communication skills of family medicine assistants

INTRODUCTION: This study aimed to reveal the communication skills of family medicine residents who are new to the profession and to provide formative feedback to residents in the early stages of their education.
METHODS: 222 family medicine assistants studying in hospitals affiliated with the University of Health Sciences within the borders of Ankara province participated in the research online. The socio-demographic characteristics of the residents participating in the study were accepted as independent variables, and the Turkish version of the Health Professionals Communication Skills Scale (HP-CSS-TR) was considered as the dependent variable.
RESULTS: The mean age of the participants was 22.13±2.25 years. The assistant seniority level of the participants was 1.77±1.39 years. 80.63% of the participants reported having problems with the patients and their relatives. 99.55% stated that they encountered difficult patients or their relatives. In our study, family medicine clinical assistants' communication, empathy, respect and social skills were high. Senior participants had better communication levels (p=0.011).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: In our study, we found that family medicine residents have high communication skills, but they expressed that they have difficulties communicating with patients and wanted to receive communication training to improve their communication skills and cope with difficult patients. Giving feedback by measuring the communication skills of young assistants who are new to the profession should be included in our assistant training practice as a standard first-step assessment of the profession.