Effect of a Role-Playing Training Program about Empathy with Patients on Communication Skills Scores of Operating Room Students: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Background and Objective: Effective communication skill is an essential characteristic of healthcare providers and empathy is one of the components of communication. Due to the technology-centered characteristics of operating rooms, not much attention has been paid to teach these subjects to the students of this field. So, this study aimed to explore the effect of a role-playing based training program about empathy with patient on communication skills scores of operating room students.Materials and Methods: This quasi-experimental study was carried out in the academic year 2017-2018 on 36 operating room students from the first to the fourth years enrolled in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. The sampling method was of stratified random type. The intervention consisted of a 12-hour training program (within 3 sessions) about empathy with patient using a role-playing method and Queendom communication skills questionnaire was completed before and after the intervention by the samples. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and statistical tests in SPSS 22.0 software.Findings: From 36 samples, 24 were female and 31 were single with the average age of 21.44 years. Results showed that before training, the total mean communication skills score of students was moderate (117.69 ± 8.76). After training, the total mean communication skills score and all its dimensions was significantly higher than before training (p<0.05). There was a direct correlation between total mean communications skills score with their academic year (p=0.03). But there was no correlation between communication skills score of the samples with their age and gender (p> 0.05).Conclusion: Empathy training through a role-playing method was effective on increasing communication skills scores of operating room students. Role-playing was an attractive teaching method for students. It seemed that making changes in the educational curriculum of operating room students was essential to make them familiar with the concept of communication skills

Keywords:

Empathy , Training , Role-Playing , Communication , Student , Operating Room.