Assessing communication skills during OSCE: need for integrated psychometric approaches

BMC Medical Education

Table 1 Results of exploratory factor analyses applied to the four-item communication scale by OSCE stations: Standardized results from one-factor solutions are shown

Station	One-factor				Variance explained ^a	KMO	Bartlett’s p	α
	Item 1	Item 2	Item 3	Item 4
	β	β	β	β
Group 1 (n = 35)
Station 1	0.841	0.846	0.904	0.864	75%	0.826	< 0.001	0.880
Station 2	0.879	0.680	0.747	0.935	67%	0.716	< 0.001	0.827
Station 3	0.787	0.741	0.789	0.596	54%	0.719	0.001	0.688
Station 4	0.922	0.853	0.866	0.848	76%	0.747	< 0.001	0.894
Station 5	0.844	0.749	0.826	0.816	66%	0.667	< 0.001	0.824
Station 6	0.844	0.903	0.684	0.906	70%	0.797	< 0.001	0.854
Group 2 (n = 51)
Station 1	0.857	0.562	0.914	0.914	68%	0.768	< 0.001	0.828
Station 2	0.828	0.831	0.879	0.868	73%	0.800	< 0.001	0.873
Station 3	0.874	0.854	0.929	0.933	81%	0.845	< 0.001	0.916
Station 4	0.860	0.661	0.829	0.872	66%	0.786	< 0.001	0.818
Station 5	0.760	0.761	0.912	0.829	67%	0.681	< 0.001	0.820
Station 6	0.711	0.682	0.808	0.737	54%	0.608	< 0.001	0.711
Group 3 (n = 61)
Station 1	0.819	0.708	0.903	0.861	68%	0.778	< 0.001	0.841
Station 2	0.857	0.777	0.829	0.786	66%	0.771	< 0.001	0.825
Station 3	0.723	0.695	0.819	0.852	60%	0.763	< 0.001	0.775
Station 4	0.770	0.625	0.789	0.797	56%	0.662	< 0.001	0.730
Station 5	0.706	0.800	0.858	0.823	64%	0.704	< 0.001	0.808
Station 6	0.804	0.782	0.836	0.820	66%	0.808	< 0.001	0.821
Group 4 (n = 89)
Station 1	0.866	0.809	0.859	0.846	71%	0.823	< 0.001	0.865
Station 2	0.848	0.826	0.874	0.910	75%	0.796	< 0.001	0.885
Station 3	0.900	0.697	0.836	0.846	68%	0.767	< 0.001	0.838
Group 5 (n = 60)
Station 1	0.813	0.709	0.761	0.874	63%	0.724	< 0.001	0.798
Station 2	0.758	0.846	0.825	0.857	68%	0.774	< 0.001	0.838
Station 3	0.777	0.841	0.874	0.801	68%	0.803	< 0.001	0.842

Notes. ^a Variance explained by one single factor with eigenvalue > 1; β: Standardized factor loadings; KMO: Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin; α: Cronbach’s alpha; Item 1: Respond to patient’s feelings and needs: respond in a perspicacious and adequate way to solicitations and needs – verbal or non-verbal – of the patient; Item 2: Interview’s structure: recognizable, coherent and flexible interaction plan during the entire consultation; the candidate conducts the interview in a coherent way; Item 3: Verbal expression: he/she communicates in an appropriate way that favours the comprehension and adapts the communication to the patient; the vocabulary is adapted to the socio-cultural level, with repetitions, summaries, articulations, tone, etc.; Item 4: Non-verbal expression: he/she favours the relationship with the patient and his/her involvement trough eye-contact, gestures, posture, interpersonal distance, pauses, etc.

ISSN: 1472-6920