scholarly journals Pharmacy Students’ Attitudes Towards Learning Communication Skills: The Case Of The United Arab Emirates

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tharwat M. El-Sakran ◽  
Sawsan T. M. El-Sakran

Effective communication amongst pharmacists, especially clinical pharmacists, physicians, nurses, patients, patients’ families and relatives and health care personnel is essential. Poor communication does not only lead to frustration and lack of respect among professions but also may compromise patient care if important information is misunderstood, ineffectively conveyed, or left out. This research explores clinical pharmacy students’ and clinical pharmacy graduates’ attitudes towards the relevance and importance of learning communication skills in their pharmacy careers in the United Arab Emirates. For the purposes of this study, Rees, Sheard, and Davies’ (2002) Communication Skills Attitudes Scale (CSAS) is used to measure pharmacy students’ and pharmacy graduates’ attitudes towards communication skills learning. Although this measure was originally designed to measure medical students’ attitudes towards communication skills learning in a European country, the results obtained from our study are not dissimilar to those reported by Rees et al. (2002) in their study. The paper concludes with some practical suggestions for pharmacy experts in charge of pharmacy communication courses. 

2019 ◽  
Vol Volume 10 ◽  
pp. 411-412
Author(s):  
Roger Ruiz Moral ◽  
Cristina García de Leonardo ◽  
Fernando Caballero Martínez ◽  
Diana Monge Martín

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dixon Thomas ◽  
Sherief Khalifa ◽  
Jayadevan Sreedharan ◽  
Rucha Bond

Background:: Clinical competence of pharmacy students is better evaluated at their practice sites. compared to the classroom. A clinical pharmacy competency evaluation rubric like that of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP)is an effective assessment tool for clinical skills and can be used to show item reliability. The preceptors should be trained on how to use the rubrics as many inherent factors could influence inter-rater reliability. Objective:: To evaluate inter-rater reliability among preceptors on evaluating clinical competence of pharmacy students, before and after a group discussion intervention. Methods:: In this quasi experimental study in a United Arab Emirates teaching hospital, Seven clinical pharmacy preceptors rated clinical pharmacy competencies of ten recent PharmD graduates referring to their portfolios and preceptorship. Clinical pharmacy competencies were adopted from ACCP and mildly modified to be relevant for the local settings. Results:: Inter-rater reliability (Cronbach's Alpha) among preceptors was reasonable being practitioners at a single site for 2-4 years. At domain level, inter-rater reliability ranged from 0.79 - 0.93 before intervention and 0.94 - 0.99 after intervention. No inter-rater reliability was observed in relation to certain competency elements ranging from 0.31 – 0.61 before intervention, but improved to 0.79 – 0.97 after intervention. Intra-class correlation coefficient improved among all individual preceptors being reliable with each other after group discussion though some had no reliability with each other before group discussion. Conclusion:: Group discussion among preceptors at the training site was found to be effective in improving inter-rater reliability on all elements of the clinical pharmacy competency evaluation. Removing a preceptor from analysis did not affect inter-rater reliability after group discussion.


Author(s):  
Michael Breyer ◽  
Lee Shockley

Good communication with patients has now been recognized as critical to their care. Although there are many potential barriers to communication in the patient care setting, health care workers understand that breaking them down to communicate in a healthy, positive fashion helps to provide patients with better care, improves staff morale, and decreases medical errors. Skilled practitioners recognize these challenges and come equipped with a toolbox designed to communicate well with patients, as they know good communication skills denote good patient care.


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