Physiotherapy 95 (2009) 294–301 Teaching and learning communication skills in physiotherapy: What is done and how should it be done? Ruth H. Parry a,∗ , Kay Brown b a Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care, Business School and School of Community Health Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2TU, UK b Rotherham Community Health Centre, NHS Rotherham PCT, Greasbrough Rd, Rotherham, S60 1RY, UK Abstract Objectives To survey practice and opinion regarding school-based teaching of communication skills, to summarise relevant research evidence from physiotherapy and beyond, to reflect on practice in light of evidence, and to propose associated recommendations. Design Survey using customised questionnaires. Basic descriptive statistical analysis and thematic content analysis were used. The results were compared with evidence from systematic reviews to derive recommendations. Survey participants and setting Educators in all UK centres delivering physiotherapy qualifying programmes in 2006. Results A response rate of 69% was achieved. The majority of respondents reported delivering communication-specific modules. Lecturing was common, and more experiential methods were also used. Assessment was mainly by written work. Educators commented on challenges and strategies involved in student engagement, provision of authentic experiences, availability of teaching time and expertise, and physiotherapyspecific teaching resources. Evidence from allied health profession, medical and nursing education research emphasises the importance of experiential teaching, formative feedback, observational assessment and a substantial evidence base on which to ground course content. In physiotherapy, the latter is emerging but incomplete. There are also gaps in direct evidence about advantages or otherwise of stand-alone modules and benefits of pre-qualification communication training. Evidence suggests that effective training requires substantial teaching time, expertise and a body of empirical research on specific communication practices and their effects. Conclusion Curriculum designers and educators should endeavour to maximise the degree to which training in this area is experiential, provide training when students have already had some contact with patients, and assess students by observation if at all possible. Due to gaps in the evidence, some important questions about optimal practice remain unanswered. © 2009 Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Physiotherapy; Survey; UK; Communication skills teaching; Communication skills assessment; Communication skills research Introduction The aims of this article are to report aspects of recent practice in teaching communication skills in UK qualifying programmes for physiotherapy and aspects of educators’ views on this area of teaching; to summarise existing research-based evidence relating to effective practice in this area; and to consider how UK practice, as reported in the survey, relates to existing research evidence. On this basis, proposals are made for how communication skills training can be further developed to maximise the likeli∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 777 13 88 699. E-mail address: ruth.parry@nottingham.ac.uk (R.H. Parry). hood of producing qualified therapists able to practise and reflect on effective interpersonal clinical communication. The paper reviews relevant evidence about clinical communication skills and training in those skills; reports the method and findings of a recent survey of UK school-based communication skills training; and analyses these in relation to one another. Communication skills: evidence Physiotherapy relies on verbal and non-verbal communication between therapists and service users, their associates, and other health and social care workers. Skilled and appropriate communication underpins effective practice [1–3], is 0031-9406/$ – see front matter © 2009 Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.physio.2009.05.003 R.H. Parry, K. Brown / Physiotherapy 95 (2009) 294–301 a key professional competence [4,5], and is highly valued by physiotherapy recipients [6–8]. Academic interest in physiotherapy communication has been longstanding [9,10]. In recent years, empirical studies have been identifying and describing various communication practices and skills, and exploring how they work, why they do and do not get used, and so on. These studies fall into three broad types, as follows. (1) Qualitative observational studies that look closely at communication practices within video-recorded consultations from a broadly critical standpoint [e.g. [11–13]]. A feature of these studies is that they see the asymmetries between patients’ and therapists’ contributions within clinical consultations as inherently problematic and negative, and this viewpoint underlies their analyses and findings. (2) Qualitative observational studies that draw on other perspectives and methods, particularly the social scientific approaches of micro-ethnography and conversation analysis [14–18]. Like the critical observational studies, these use an inductive approach, deriving general descriptions and understandings about communication practices by qualitatively analysing individual recorded consultations. The conversation analytic approach in particular differs from critical studies in its perspective on communication asymmetries. In conversation analytic studies, asymmetry is viewed as integral to professional health care and is understood as collaboratively achieved—both patients and therapists contribute (ten Have [19] provides a clear demonstration and discussion, and Pilnick and Dingwall [20] give a useful overview of the debate on asymmetry). Analysis in this approach also prioritises examination of sequences of communication, and identifying and describing both therapists’ and patients’ contributions. (3) Quantitative observational studies [e.g. [21–23]] use a deductive rather than an inductive approach to developing knowledge and understandings about communication. Inductive studies examine data without assuming a priori categories, whereas deductive reasoning starts by making decisions about a framework of categories, with this framework then applied to observed or recorded data. Some of these studies in physiotherapy have designed a customised communication coding instrument [21,22], whereas others have adopted and applied a previously designed instrument [23]. Moving from the methods to the scope and findings of these studies, most have documented aspects of physiotherapy communication in stroke rehabilitation [12,17] or outpatient musculoskeletal settings [11,14,21,23]. As such, substantial areas of practice remain largely unexplored. Aspects of communication that have been described include: the prevalence of touch [23]; how therapists provide instructions and corrections [14]; how patients demonstrate learning [14]; how patients and therapists interact about goal set- 295 ting [17] and during history taking [11]. Whilst these skills are clearly relevant to many areas of physiotherapy, general and specialism-specific skills remain undocumented. Furthermore, whilst non-verbal aspects of communication are absolutely vital to practice, efforts to document and understand them are at a rather early stage [23,24]. There are other limitations in the existing research: some of it focuses on single components of communication and omits how these fit and function together [22,23], and there has been limited attention to patients’ contributions and the way in which these shape what therapists say and do [21,22]. As well as research on the components and patterns of physiotherapy communication, some work has also been undertaken on its effects. In particular, studies have shown that therapists’ communication affects the way in which patients experience their condition [25,26]. However, although it has been strongly argued that communication is important for long-term outcomes of physiotherapy treatment [27,28], there is currently no robust empirical evidence on the impact of communication practices on physiotherapy patients’ long-term outcomes. Therefore, whilst studies have made a significant start on documenting the components and effects of the communication practices that comprise physiotherapy, there is some way to go in order to construct a comprehensive and detailed framework that describes and explains this complex field. Communication training: policy, practice and evidence Professional and regulatory bodies see the development of effective communication practice as an important aspect of pre-qualification physiotherapy education [4,29]. Nevertheless, it has been argued that this area tends to be overlooked in a curriculum where time pressures ‘may encourage a narrow focus on physical rehabilitation’ [3]. Recent research by the first author collated evidence about communication skills training for allied health professionals (AHPs) [30]. It included a systematic review of studies on the effects of interventions designed to influence communication practice amongst pre- and post-qualification AHPs, including physiotherapists. Five studies fulfilled the rather broad inclusion criteria, all found positive effects. The most robust evidence came from two studies that used within-subjects controlled designs—in essence, a series of single case experiments [31,32]. Both evaluated interventions for qualified AHPs in brain injury rehabilitation settings, and involved experientially-based training and observational assessments. In both studies, the training programmes and assessment schedules were based on substantial prior evidence about the content and effectiveness of specific skills. Both studies found positive effects on participants’ practice behaviours; in addition, the study that measured patients’ outcomes found positive effects [32]. As robust evidence about communication training and its effects in AHPs is limited, a parallel review was conducted on indirect evidence from medicine and nursing. Echoing the 296 R.H. Parry, K. Brown / Physiotherapy 95 (2009) 294–301 evidence in AHPs, this found ‘fairly strong evidence for positive effects of interventions that target specific skills and that are designed on the basis of clear empirical research’ [30]. The indirect evidence also indicates that for training to be effective, it must include experiential opportunities to practise communication and feedback; that ‘learners need to be ready and motivated for change and training’, and that training is more likely to be effective when delivered to those who have some clinical experience. In the medical education literature and beyond, it is widely held that the gold standard for assessing communication skills learning entails observing and measuring actual behaviour in real-life situations [33], although simulated scenarios and patients are often used and regarded by many as an acceptable substitute, particularly in undergraduate training [34,35]. Unfortunately, students’ performance in written assessments cannot be assumed to have any relationship with their actual communication performance in practice [33,36,37]. Unsurprisingly in light of all this, effective teaching and assessment of communication skills is time consuming and expensive [38,39]. It is also important to note that although research evidence generally supports communication-specific training for qualified practitioners, there is little strong evidence of its effects when delivered to pre-qualification practitioners. Despite this gap, teaching of communication skills is firmly established in undergraduate medicine [40]. Communication’s place in the medical curriculum has grown against a backdrop of detailed documentation of the skills and practices that comprise doctor–patient communication, particularly in primary care [41,42]; and substantial evidence that certain communication practices affect healthcare quality and outcomes [43,44]. Delivery of modules that focus specifically upon health communication skills is the norm in medical schools [40,45,46]. Well-established frameworks that describe communication and thereby underpin teaching are available [47], and it is common for this training to include interactions with simulated patients [33–35,48]. The survey Against this backdrop, this article reports the results of a survey of contemporary physiotherapy teaching and learning about clinical communication in qualifying programmes in the UK. The survey aimed to gather information about how communication teaching was delivered, and the respondents’ accumulated experiences and views on teaching and learning in this area. Survey method A questionnaire was developed on the basis of current guidance [49–51]. Selection of question themes and content was shaped in consultation with physiotherapy educators and students, and also by reviewing prior surveys of medical schools [46,52] and drawing on existing knowledge about Table 1 Summary of questionnaire topics. Numerical and categorical responses sought on: • The full programme’s duration and intake • Whether any modules/units within the programme were designed to provide teaching about clinical communication skills and/or communication skills as their primary or major secondary focus • For modules with primary or secondary focus on communication: – duration – teaching modalities – assessment strategies Free-text responses sought on: • The formal title, written aims and learning outcomes of communication-specific modules • Recommended texts and materials • Other means by which clinical communication skills were integrated into the curriculum (responses on this were sought from both those who did and did not provide specific communication skills modules) • Respondents’ views, experiences and ‘ideal world’ aspirations in this area of teaching • Recent and planned changes in curriculum affecting this area communication skills training and evaluation within physiotherapy [3,30] and beyond [33,36]. A first draft of the questionnaire was sent to volunteers from the physiotherapy higher education and research sectors recruited via the interactive Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) site (http://www.interactivecsp.org.uk/). They were asked to complete the questions and provide comments. The content and layout of the instrument was revised on the basis of this exercise. These revisions included allowing respondents to describe relevant modules in terms of those with a primary focus on communication, and those with a significant communication component but where this was not the sole focus. Both email and postal copies of the questionnaire and accompanying invitation letter were distributed to each of the 36 centres listed in 2006 by the CSP as offering qualifying programmes. Where possible, the authors identified individual staff known to be interested in research and/or communication teaching, and sent questionnaires directly to them. It was not possible to do this for six of the 36 centres, so the questionnaire was sent to the contact addresses published in the CSP’s list. Repeat questionnaires and letters were sent out to non-responders 2 months after the first mailing, and again 3 months later. The first mailing of questionnaires was in August 2006, and the final reply to a subsequent reminder was received in December 2007. Therefore, the data spanned two academic years. In anticipation of this, questions were asked about recent and planned changes to the curriculum. Responses indicated no substantial changes between the 2 years. The full questionnaire is available on request from the corresponding author. The areas it covered are summarised in Table 1. Numerical and categorical responses were entered R.H. Parry, K. Brown / Physiotherapy 95 (2009) 294–301 297 into a custom-designed Excel spreadsheet, and frequencies or ranges of responses were calculated. Free-text responses were collated in word-processed documents and tables, and analysed through thematic content analysis [53]. Table 2 Reported timing, teaching modalities and assessment in the 18 communication-specific modules. Findings Teaching modalities and resources Twenty-five of the 36 recipient higher education centres (69%) responded to the questionnaire. The non-responders were widely geographically spread; four were programmes where the questionnaire had not been addressed to a specific individual, and seven had been addressed to named individuals. Eighteen of the respondents (72%) reported that their programmes included modules with a primary or secondary focus on communication. Analysis of the formal aims and learning outcomes suggested that most modules concentrated on theoretical knowledge about communication practices and skills, and on inculcating the ability to describe and reflect on them. The aims of less than half (7/18) of the programmes explicitly referred to the provision of opportunities to practise, develop and demonstrate communication skills. Quoting one example, the module aimed to provide students with ‘an opportunity to explore, understand, and put into practice known and new communication skills’. Only two programmes included learning outcomes that explicitly referred to the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately, presumably because of the difficulty in measuring with validity whether such an aim had been achieved [54]. Outcomes and assessments mainly focused on students’ ability to describe and reflect on practices, rather than on their practical communication proficiency; a matter returned to below. Table 2 describes the timing, teaching modalities and assessment methods reported for the communication-specific courses. Most were delivered early within the training programme, formal lectures predominated over practical and experiential learning, and a minority included any practical assessment of learning. Respondents listed numerous supporting textbooks and some peer-reviewed papers. The most frequently cited texts besides policy documents [4,55] are listed in Table 3. Only one of these texts had a sole focus on physiotherapy skill and practice. All seven respondents who reported that their programmes did not include communication-specific modules responded to a question which asked about other means by which clinical communication skills were integrated into the curriculum. Whilst the question was not designed to elicit substantial detail, all seven mentioned that communication skills were overtly assessed within practically-based examinations in their programmes. Two reported that their curriculum was structured according to a case- or problem-based learning framework, with attention to communication integral within the framework. Year in which delivered Year one Year two Year three (Total = 18) 15 1 2 Lectures Small group discussions Role play Simulated or actual patients Videos of simulated scenarios Videos of actual patient treatments 18 17 15 5 8 4 Essay only Essay plus oral viva or pre-prepared presentation Essay plus practical 18 4 Assessment formats 4 Educators’ comments on challenges and strategies in this area The questionnaire was successful in eliciting responses on these matters from most respondents: 14/18 gave responses to questions about their views on the challenges in this area and on how they dealt with, or would like to deal with, these challenges. Reported challenges included students’ failure to appreciate the value and importance of communication teaching and learning, and hence a lack of efforts and engagement in this area. Several respondents saw this as arising from students’ failure to recognise that everyday communication skills differed from those used in the workplace. One response referred to students’ ‘inflated self-efficacy for communicating’ and another summarised as follows: ‘Students do not perceive the subject as a priority and therefore often fail to participate fully in tutorials, seminars etc.’. Those who reported their attempts to deal with this challenge mentioned including the following in their courses: the research evidence of associations between communication and outcomes; Table 3 Most frequently mentioned supporting textbooks on communication for communication-specific modules (in alphabetical order). • Burnard P. Effective communication skills for health professionals, 2nd ed. London: Stanley Thornes; 1997 [58] • Dickson D, Hargie O, Morrow N. Communication skills training for health professionals. London: Nelson Thornes; 1996 [59] • French S, Sim J. Physiotherapy: a psychosocial approach, 3rd ed. London: Elsevier; 2004 [60] • Ley P. Communicating with patients. London: Nelson Thornes; 1990 [61] • Reynolds F. Communication and clinical effectiveness in rehabilitation. Edinburgh: Elsevier Butterworth Heinemann; 2005 [3] • Silverman J, Kurtz S, Draper J. Skills for communicating with patients. Abingdon: Radcliffe Medical Press; 1998 [62] 298 R.H. Parry, K. Brown / Physiotherapy 95 (2009) 294–301 a requirement that students read accounts of patients’ experiences of health care; and references to research findings about patients’ preferences and needs in the area of communication and support from professionals. Another strategy was to require students to keep logs and write accounts of their own skills and experiences; this seemed ‘to help at least some to pick up on areas of weakness and to challenge any cosy assumption that they are fully prepared to relate to patients/clients’. Other frequently reported challenges concerned the difficulties of providing sufficiently authentic experiences in academic settings, and of integrating placement and schoolbased learning on the topic. In dealing with these challenges, some respondents reported including patients’ and simulated patients’ contributions, and using reflective feedback sessions and placement journals. Other reported concerns and difficulties were lack of time, resources, staffing and expertise for both teaching and assessment. Several respondents reported that although they did not include formative individualised feedback and assessment of actual communication proficiency, they would do so in an ideal world. Discussion There is a small body of direct evidence in allied health professions and a larger body of indirect evidence in medicine and nursing which suggests that communication training can have a positive effect on therapists’ practice and patients’ outcomes. This evidence points to the importance of designing teaching and assessment on the basis of clear empirical evidence about the content and effects of practices. It indicates that it is important for learners to be motivated for change and development of their communication, and that training should be experientially based and include formative feedback. The evidence also indicates that some form of assessment of actual conduct is far preferable to written assessments. Finally, effective training and valid assessment are time consuming, require considerable teaching expertise and, as a result, are expensive. This recent survey of school-based communication skills teaching within UK physiotherapy qualifying programmes found that the majority of programmes offered specific standalone communication-specific modules, with a minority addressing communication skills solely through other forms of integration in the curriculum. Reported communicationspecific modules were mainly delivered before students had much clinical experience, largely relied on delivery through lectures, and assessed outcomes via written or oral reports about communication rather than by actual communication practice. Comparing practice reported in the survey with the existing evidence indicates that there is room for improvement in terms of: delivering at least some of the communicationrelated training later rather than earlier within training programmes; designing training to be primarily experien- tial rather than lecture based; and assessing students’ actual performance. This is likely to be more costly than current practice and to require further development of educators’ expertise. Responses to those sections of the questionnaire that sought educators’ experiences and views indicated that there is some recognition and awareness of the shortcomings of current practice and of alternatives that would improve practice. The fact that the educators expressed these views suggests that significant constraints other than educators’ knowledge are impacting the quality of provision in this area, these might include strategic, organisational and financial constraints. There are significant areas where it is difficult to make clear recommendations because of major gaps in available evidence. Three of these gaps are listed below, along with suggested considerations for educators to draw on when developing both overall strategy and specific courses. The first gap is the absence of evidence about effectiveness of training in healthcare communication skills for student practitioners; the robust evidence all derives from interventions for qualified practitioners. Therefore, decisions about whether to actually attempt to teach this area have to be made in the light of current policy guidance; this clearly recommends that the development of communication skills should be attended to in qualifying programmes. Another relevant point is that teaching healthcare communication is regarded as best practice in medical training. Finally, it seems reasonable to argue that given evidence that training post qualification can have positive effects, pre-qualification training has a good chance of being effective provided it is designed in accordance with best-available evidence. The second gap in evidence concerns the value of communication-specific modules as opposed to approaches which rely solely on integration within other modules and teaching. All the evidence located by the authors derived from communication-specific courses/modules, and no comparisons between approaches were found. Thus, there is insufficient evidence to recommend for or against communication-specific modules. On the other hand, it could be argued that a benefit of specific modules is that they provide a clear mechanism and designated space for delivering the types of course content, teaching modalities and overt assessment that are supported by best-available evidence. The third gap is in the basic evidence about the contents and effects of physiotherapy-specific communication practices and skills. As discussed, this type of evidence is vital in grounding effective training. Whilst useful information is now available on physiotherapy skills and their effects, there is still a long way to go. There is room for synthesis of existing evidence from physiotherapy and related areas, and for documentation of basic and specialist physiotherapy communication practices. It is suggested that inductive observational studies would be better suited to this work at present than deductive coding studies. This is suggested because of the relatively early stage of progress in documenting precisely which communication skills are used, and the significance R.H. Parry, K. Brown / Physiotherapy 95 (2009) 294–301 and effects of these. Deductive, coding studies would be premature because they unavoidably rely on some ‘givens’, some a priori assumptions about components of communication and their significance. As argued elsewhere [56], conversation analytic approaches, which are not based on an inherently critical stance towards professionals and their practice, seem to be particularly well suited to the endeavour. Improving the empirical evidence base on physiotherapy communication would not only support better course content, it would also help resolve the problems associated with the lack of credibility of communication training that exists in some quarters. It could also contribute to increasing the availability of physiotherapy-specific teaching materials. This study has a number of limitations, particularly with regard to the scope and methods of the survey reported. One-third of qualifying programmes did not respond to the questionnaire, and no data are available to ascertain whether these differed in relevant features from the responders. Although the letter which accompanied the questionnaire was designed to encourage accurate reporting, without additional fieldwork it cannot be judged whether respondents may have overplayed or underplayed the extent of teaching within their programmes. As noted, some responses pertained to one academic year and some to the following year. Respondents were asked about significant changes in programmes and did not report large-scale changes, and there was no change in policy or other development that would have made this likely. After the first pilot of the questionnaire, it was decided not to include questions about communication teaching and learning during clinical placement. This area is undoubtedly important, has been subject to some previous examination [57] and was mentioned by most of the respondents. However, further fieldwork would be needed before a targeted and relevant survey instrument could be designed. Similarly, the questionnaire gathered little detail in terms of how communication skills were integrated within other teaching; more detailed fieldwork would be needed to design appropriate survey questions. Conclusion This is an area of teaching that is demanding in terms of teaching skills, resources and student engagement. It is also demanding because of the complex nature of this aspect of clinical skill, its integration with all other areas of physiotherapy, and also the challenges of its assessment. There are some clear pointers available to educators and curriculum designers within the existing literature on education and practice, and this paper has made some associated recommendations. These include recommending that teaching should: be delivered as much as possible after placements have started; include experiential opportunities and formative feedback by expert staff; be based as far as possible on existing empirical knowledge about physiotherapy communication; use strategies directed at engaging 299 students; and include practical observational assessment of students’ learning. Implementation of these recommendations will require some commitment of time and expertise within physiotherapy qualifying programmes. Significant gaps in the evidence are also noted, and these pose challenges for teachers, students and academic researchers in this field. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the physiotherapist educators who spent time commenting on the initial draft of the questionnaire, and all those who provided responses in the main survey. Meredith Newman and two anonymous reviewers read and commented very helpfully on an earlier version of this manuscript. Ethical approval: The study did not require health-servicesbased ethical approval since it involved survey of the higher education sector rather than the National Health Service. The proposal underwent internal ethical review within the Institute for Science and Society, University of Nottingham, and the study conduct complied with the British Sociological Association’s Statement of Ethical Practice (http://www.britsoc.co.uk/equality/Statement+Ethical+ Practice.htm). Funding: This work was conducted as part of a programme of research funded by a postdoctoral fellowship awarded by the National Coordinating Centre for Research Capacity Development (National Institute of Health Research) UK (Fellowship Number NCCRCD PDA/N&AHP/PD02/038). The sponsor commissioned peer review of the proposal but had no other involvement in study design and analysis. 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