Attitudes of medical students towards communication skills and patient-centered care: the impact of group mentorship

Objectives: To explore medical students' self-assessed preparedness for clinical practice and attitudes towards learning communication skills, and attitudes towards patient-centeredness before and after introducing a new curriculum with a group mentorship program. Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire-study (1-5 Likert scale) was conducted among the first class of medical students following the new curriculum (NC, n = 51) in their fifth year and the final class of students in the old curriculum (OC, n = 48) in their sixth year. The questionnaire contained questions regarding program evaluation, and statements that measured the students' attitudes towards learning communication skills and patient-centeredness. Descriptive statistics and Mann-Whitney U-test were used. Results: NC-students (Mdn=4) scored significantly higher than the OC-students (Mdn=3), when asked how they thought the first four years of the medical curriculum had prepared them for clinical practice (U=828.5, p=.003, r=0.35). Similarly, NC-students felt more prepared for communication with patients (Mdn=4 for both groups, U=748.5, p<.001, r=0.35) and ethical reflections (Mdn=4 for both groups, U=951.5, p=0.043, r=0.20). NC-students reported significantly more positive attitudes towards learning communication skills than did OC-students. They had higher mean scores on all items regarding patient-centeredness, although these differences were not statistically significant. Conclusions: A group-based mentorship program within the new curriculum significantly enhanced medical students' self-assessed clinical preparedness and positively shifted their attitudes towards communication skills and patientcenteredness. More research is needed to compare medical schools with and without longitudinal group mentorship programs to assess students' professional attitudes, and ideally, their performance in clinical practice.