Communicating wisely: teaching residents to communicate effectively with patients and caregivers about unnecessary tests

Table 3 Resident Performance on the Structured Assessment of Communication Skills

	Mean (SD)^a	Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICC)
Overall assessment	4.0 (0.7)	0.496
Provided clear recommendations†	4.1 (0.8)	0.532
Elicited patient concerns†	3.7 (1.8)	0.574
Demonstrated empathy	4.1 (1.0)	0.384
Confirmed agreement with patient/caregiver	3.8 (0.9)	0.403
General communication skills	4.1 (0.8)	0.496

^aScores on a 5-point Likert scale where 1 = not done; 3 = Attempted, but incomplete or not always effective; 5 = Excellent, complete and done effectively
†Residents performed significantly better at providing clear recommendations as compared to eliciting patient/caregiver concerns (p < 0.01)

ISSN: 1472-6920