Exploration of various teaching methods in the cultivation of doctor-patient communication ability of medical students

Objective To explore the application of various teaching methods in improving the doctor-patient communication skills of medical students. Methods It was a prospective self-control study. From January 2017 to December 2017, Before entered into psychiatry department of the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, medical students were evaluated for "the Communication Skills Attitude Scale" and "the Medical Students' Doctor-Patient Communication Behavior Scale" , within the following six months a variety of ways of communication skills training, including internship lectures, interactive teaching and new media teaching, scale assessment again after 6 months. The most effective teaching methods were chosen by students. Results After training, the communication skill of medical students in all aspects was improved, the negative attitude was reduced (35.22±4.35 vs 28.40±3.54), the positive attitude was increased (53.20±5.35 vs 60.84±2.72), the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05); the medical students' communication behavior scale before and after training (151.78±5.33 vs 166.27±4.36), the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). Before training, male students' positive attitude score towards doctor-patient communication were worse than female students (51.41±4.88 vs 54.91±5.33), while malestudents' negative attitude score was higher than female students(36.68±4.80 vs 33.83±3.42). After training, the support score of male students were worse than female students(16.86±1.52 vs 17.83±1.27), and the differences were statistically significant (P<0.05). The most effective training method favored student was simulation teaching 46.7% (63/135), followed by WeChat 28.9% (39/135). Conclusions Various teaching methods can improve doctor-patient relationship, students of different genders have different communication abilities and preferences for teaching methods. Among them, simulation teaching in interactive teaching and WeChat platform as the new media teaching facilites are relatively effective, which are worthy of further improvement. Key words: Doctor-patient communication; Interactive teaching; New media teaching