Observed communication skills: how do they relate to the consultation content? A nation-wide study of graduate medical students seeing a standardized patient for a first-time consultation in a general practice setting

Final-year medical school students (N = 111) carried out a consultation with an actor playing the role of a patient with a specific somatic complaint, psychosocial stressors, and concerns about cancer. Based on videotapes, communication skills and consultation content were scored separately.The mean level of overall communication skills had a significant impact upon the counts of psychosocial issues, the patient's concerns about cancer, and the information and planning parts of the consultation content being addressed. Gender and age had no influence upon the relationship between communication skills and consultation content.Communication skills seem to be important for final-year students' competence in addressing sensitive psychosocial issues and patients' concerns as well as informing and planning with patients being representative for a fairly complex case in general practice. This result should be considered in the design and incorporation of communication skills training as part of the curriculum of medical schools.Effective patient care relies on the physician's understanding of the patient's biological, psychosocial, and cultural background. In the initial consultation with a patient in a general practice setting, the optimal content of a consultation constitutes the basis for the following: reliably diagnosing biological as well as relevant psychosocial factors, exploring the patient's ideas, concerns, and expectations, and informing the patient about his or her condition including a plan for further treatment [1,2].The training in specific communication skills during medical school is based on the notion that independent of the physician's medical knowledge, the practice of communication skills will have a significant impact upon the character and quality of the consultation. The reason for consulting the doctor may be concerns about more than symptom-related distress [3]. In some studies, successful levels of communication skills have been linked to stude