Communicating bad news: from medical education to practice

Abstract Providing comprehensive care to individuals is essential to medical practice. Communicating bad news is defined as any information that seriously and adversely affects a person’s vision of the future. This study evaluates communication skills among medical students. The methodology consisted of simulation workshops on communicating bad news. The scene performed, the achievement of the primary (communication of bad news) and secondary (patient reception) objectives were evaluated using a structured questionnaire. Sixty students participated in the study, 96.7% achieved the primary objective and 78.3% did not achieve the secondary objective. In the presence of care and concern, the scores obtained were higher. The communication of bad news can be assessed by structured assessment and showing care and concern is positively associated with the quality of communication.

摘要：为个体提供全方位医疗照护是医疗执业的核心要务。坏消息告知指的是任何会严重负面影响个体对未来展望的信息。本研究旨在评估医学生的沟通技能。本研究采用坏消息告知模拟工作坊作为研究方法，通过结构化问卷对模拟沟通场景的表现、核心目标（坏消息告知）与次要目标（患者接受度）的达成情况进行评估。本研究共招募60名医学生参与，其中96.7%的参与者达成了核心目标，78.3%未达成次要目标。当沟通中展现出关怀与关切时，参与者所得评分更高。坏消息告知技能可通过结构化评估进行评测，而展现关怀与关切与沟通质量呈显著正相关。