Efficacy of a communication skills training for nursing students: a quasi-experimental study

INTRODUCTION: Effective communication skills enable nurses to understand their patients and gather essential information or care. In addition, the patient care period runs shorter as a result of effective communication. However, in cases where effective communication cannot be established with the patient, medical errors can arise, while the quality of patient care declines as well. Therefore, the nursing education curriculum is required to include sufficient programs for communication skills. The objective of this study is to explore the effects of staging through roleplaying the sketches of formed by the students based on their own lives on the development of communications skills.
METHODS: In this study, quasi-experimental and pre-post designs were used. Participants included in the study were randomly divided into two as experimental (n=40) and control (n=38) groups. In the evaluation of the learning, “Interpersonal Problem Solving Inventory” and “Communication Skills Inventory” were at the pre-training and the post-training.
RESULTS: As a result, “Confidence,” “Satisfaction,” “Feedback,” “Staging Sketches Through Role Play,” and the “Communica-tion Skills Gained” themes were revealed. It was determined that the communication and interpersonal problem-solving skills (IPSI) of students in the experimental group developed more compared to pre-training. Upon examination of the difference between the experimental and control groups, it was found that the communication and IPSI of the students in the experimental group are better compared to the control group.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: In this study, it has been shown that the training provided through student-based sketches and under the management of an expert in their field, is effective in terms of developing communications skills and interpersonal problem-solving in nursing students. Considering the results of this study, role-playing, displacement, giving feedback, and staging students’ life stories can be added to the education framework.