Qom University of Medical Sciences Journal

The need of educational and medical systems for employing skilled personnel has caused the clinical competence of health professionals and its related factors to be considered more than before. In medical education, communication skills are one of the most important features in determining competence of medical team. Therefore, poor communication skills and the challenges in medical environments such as operating rooms where medial staff work as a team, can have a significant impact on their performance. Poor communication between medical team members can cause medical errors and reduce the quality of patient care. Inefficient interactions and lack of communication skills can affect medical students’ clinical competence and self-efficacy. This study aims to investigate the relationship of communication skills with clinical self-efficacy and clinical competence in operating room students.
Methods
This is a descriptive-correlational study. Participants were 100 students in operating room from the School of Allied Medical Sciences, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran in 2021, who were selected by a census method. To collect data, in addition to a demographic form (surveying age, sex, semester), queendom communication skills test (QCST), perceived perioperative competence scale-revised (PPCS-R), and clinical self-efficacy questionnaire were used. The QCST has 34 items and five dimensions of listening skills, understanding verbal and nonverbal messages, insight to communication, emotional regulation, and assertiveness. The rating is based on a five-point Likert scale from 1= Never to 5= Always. The items 2, 4, and 6 have reversed scoring. The total score ranges 34-170, where a score of 34-68 indicates poor communication skills, a score of 68-102 indicates moderate communication skills, and a score >102 indicates high communication skills. Its reliability have been confirmed with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.71. The PPCS-R has 33 items and five dimensions of basic skills, leadership, interaction with colleagues, skill and expertise, and professional development. The scoring is based on a five-point Likert scale from 1= Never  to 5= Always. The total score ranges 30-165. Its reliability of its Persian version was confirmed with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.86 in the study by Mirbagher et al. The clinical self-efficacy questionnaire consists of 7 items answered by yes (2 points), to some extent (1 point), and no (0 points). The reliability of this questionnaire was confirmed with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.85 in the study by Heshmati et al. The collected data were analyzed in SPSS software, version 26 software using descriptive statistics (No. (%), Mean±SD) and inferential statistics (Pearson’s correlation test, independent t-test, and ANOVA).
Results
The results showed a statistically significant and positive correlation between communication skills and clinical competence (r=0.478, P≤0.001) and between communication skills with clinical self-efficacy (r=0.445, P≤0.001). The scores of communication skills, clinical competence, and clinical self-efficacy had a significant relationship with the academic semester of students such that with the increase of semester, their communication skills, self-efficacy and clinical competence increased; however, but communication skills, clinical competence, and clinical self-efficacy had no statistically significant relationship with gender.
Discussion
There is a positive and significant correlation between, clinical self-efficacy, and clinical competence of Iranian operating room students. Considering the importance of communication skills in establishing appropriate interpersonal relationships among these students and its positive relationship with their clinical competence and self-efficacy, to provide safe patient care and quality services, attention should be given to the communication skills training of operating room students by educational planners and managers.
Ethical Considerations
Compliance with ethical guidelines
This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Qom University of Medical Sciences (Code: IR.MUQ.REC.1400.201).
Funding
This study was done with the support of Qom University of Medical Sciences.
Authors contributions
Writing, editing and data analysis: Azam Hosseinpour; Monitoring the research process and designing the enabling research path, qualitative data analysis: Shiva Naghavi; Drafting, reviewing and searching for related articles: Seyed Ahmad Bathaei; Methodology and data analysis in research phases: Fatemeh Sharifi Fard; Searching for texts and articles and writing the draft: Mehsa Haji Mohammad Hosseini and Hossein Sharfi.
Conflicts of interest
The authors declared no conflict of interest.