Table 1 PICOS, inclusion and exclusion criteria applied to database search

Population

• Postgraduate doctor or physician or resident, medical officer, registrar, house officer, attending, consultant

• Doctor-patient communications

• Hospital setting

• English Language

• Undergraduate medical students

• Veterinary science or Dentistry or Nursing

• Allied health specialties such as Pharmacy, Dietetics, Physiotherapy, Podiatry, Occupational Therapy

Intervention

• Training of doctors or physicians or residents to improve physician-patient communications

• Assessment of doctors or physicians or residents on physician-patient communication skills

• Curriculum on doctor-patient communications, including approaches, content and assessment methods

• Interprofessional communications

Comparison

• Various forms of curriculum initiatives to improve communication skills

• Prevailing theories and principles that guide current teaching methods

• Assessment methods and domains of communication skills

Outcome

• To incorporate effective communication training in a new communications curriculum, or to improve existing programs for postgraduate medical training

Study design

• Articles published from 1st January 2000 to 31st December 2020

• Published in English Language

• Databases: PsycINFO, EMBASE, PubMed, ERIC, CINAHL, Scopus and Google Scholar

• Mixed-methods research, meta-analyses, systematic reviews, randomised controlled trials, cohort studies, case-control studies, cross-sectional studies and descriptive papers

• Grey Literature, electronic and print information not by commercial publishing

• Case reports and series, ideas, editorials, perspectives, and conference abstracts