Comparison and Assessment of Communication Skills in Traditional and Integrated Undergraduate Dental Education

Abstract

Objective: To compare and assess the communication skills of undergraduate dental students of traditional and integrated system of education.
Materials and Methods: Verbal and written consent was taken from dental students. They were then observed while interacting with patients during their clinical rotation using Kalamazoo Essential Communication Checklist (adapted) KEECC-A. KEECC-A consists of seven items scale on which scoring was done and these items corresponds to seven elements of a doctor’s communication. All the obtained data was then put into SPSS to obtain comparison of Means and Levene’s test. Results were derived based on data obtained.

Result: A total 100 of dental students were observed during their clinical rotations, and were assessed using Kalamazoo Essentials Elements Communication Checklist(adapted) KEECC-A. It consists of seven items, the means of item 1: Builds a relationship, for group-a and group-b is same whereas the means of item 2: Opens the discussion, item 3: Gathers information, item 4: Understands the patient’s perspective, item 5: Share information, item 6: Reaches agreement, item 7: Provides closure, have significant difference in their values. Group-b has higher means, which shows the students in this group have done better. Levene’s test result shows only Item-1 have a value of p higher than 0.05, whereas (item-2) to (item-7) have value of p less than 0.05, which shows significant difference between both groups.
Conclusion: The conclusion of this study is that dental students from integrated system have done well in (item 2) to (item-7) and performance of item-1 in both group-a and group-b is similar. Therefore, it is concluded that an integrated system is better than a traditional system.