Do medical students like communication? Validation of the German CSAS (Communication Skills Attitude Scale)

• Main Authors: Busch, Anne-Kathrin, Rockenbauch, Katrin, Schmutzer, Gabriele, Brähler, Elmar
• Format: Article
• Language: deu
• Published: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House 2015-02-01
• Series: GMS Zeitschrift für Medizinische Ausbildung
• Subjects: communication; medical education; undergraduate; attitude of health personnel
• Online Access: http://www.egms.de/static/en/journals/zma/2015-32/zma000953.shtml

Objectives: Attitudes towards communication skills of medical undergraduates can be gathered using the Communication Skills Attitude Scale (CSAS). We aimed to develop a German version of the CSAS (CSAS-G) in order to explore attitudes towards communication skills in a German cohort. Additionally the potential influence of demographic factors was examined.Methods: We realized the CSAS-G and conducted a survey with 529 participants from 3 different years of study. We then carried out an explorative as well as confirmatory factor analysis and compared the attitudinal scores. Multiple regression analysis was performed.Results: The confirmatory analysis confirmed the two-subscale system revealed by the explorative factor analysis. Students indicate low levels of negative attitudes and moderate levels of positive attitudes. Attitudinal scores differ significantly in relation to gender.Conclusion: The CSAS-G can be used in German cohorts to evaluate attitudes towards communication skills. Medical students in our study show basically a positive approach. Further investigation is necessary to explore and understand attitudes towards communication skills of German medical students.