Exploring ATCOM (Attitude and communication) - Medical students attitude towards doctor patient relationship

Balaji Arumugam; Sneha Mohanan

Volume : VI, Issue : IX, September - 2017

Exploring ATCOM (Attitude and communication) - Medical students attitude towards doctor patient relationship

Balaji Arumugam, Sneha Mohanan

Abstract :

BACKGROUND:For establishing a successful doctor-patient relationship an effective doctor-patient communication is needed. Medical student�s attitude towards the patient-doctor relationship has not been studied previously in India and hence it deserves our serious attention. We initiated this study with the aim to assess the leaning of medical students towards doctor or patient centeredness after implementing a new curriculum (Attitude and Communication module) for Second year students and compared them with other professional year students.OBJECTIVES:To assess the attitude of students towards doctor-patient communication and to assess the impact of the AT-COM module (new curriculum introduced) among medical students from different years.MATERIALS AND METHODS:A Descriptive, Cross sectional study was conducted and the study participants were interviewed using a standardized and validated questionnaire Patient Practitioner Orientation Score (PPOS). The analysis was done using SPSS software version 20.RESULTS:A total of 200 study participants were interviewed from all the four MBBS professional years. The mean PPOS for the entire sample was 3.36 (� 0.53 S.D). Second year students who were exposed to ATCOM module showed more patient centered behavior (Mean 4.00 �0.59 S.D)than other professional year students.Also female gender showed more patient centered behavior (Mean 4.01 � 0.26 S.D) than male counterpart (Mean 3.39 �0.53 S.D). CONCLUSION:Our study suggests that medical school curricula should contain specific interventions aimed towards attitude and communication where patient-centered attitudes are fostered among the students who are the future doctors.