The evaluation of attitudes and opinions of dental students about communication skills education

Communication with patients and their relatives plays a key role for health professionals. It has been reported that effective communication between the patient and the physician increases the patient's satisfaction and compliance with the treatment, while reducing the level of anxiety and the frequency of complaints. With the demonstration that communication skills can be learned and taught, 'communication skills training' has started to take place in training programs. There are many studies in the literature evaluating students' attitudes towards communication skills training. In this study, it is aimed to determine the attitude levels of dentistry students towards communication skills by adapting the Dental Communication Skills Attitude Scale (DCSAS) into Turkish. The study group of the scale adaptation phase consists of 257 students studying at Hacettepe and Baskent University Faculty of Dentistry. In the validity and reliability analyzes of the DCSAS scale adapted to Turkish, the Cronbach's alpha value was 0,735 for the scale; 0,917 for the positive subscale (14 items); for the negative subscale (7 items) it was determined as 0,732. At the end of the adaptation stages, it was concluded that the scale, which consists of 21 items and two subscales, can be used as a valid and reliable measurement tool in evaluating the attitudes of dentistry students towards communication skills. The study group consisted of 386 students studying at Hacettepe, Gazi and Baskent Universities Faculty of Dentistry in the 2021-2022 academic year in order to determine the communication skills and attitude levels of dentistry students by using the adapted Turkish DCSAS. As a result of the reliability and internal consistency analyzes of the scale, the Cronbach's alpha value was found to be 0,792. The mean scores of the dentistry students on the scale were 84,10±8,02 (32-105), and the mean scores of the positive and negative subscales were 58,40±5,77 (21-70) and 25,69±3,55 (11- 35) was found. In our study, it was seen that the attitudes of dentistry students towards communication skills training were positive. There was no statistically significant difference in the attitude levels of the participants according to gender, year of education and education status. In line with the findings of the study, it is recommended to carry out longitudinal studies to monitor the change of students' communication skills attitudes during the education period and to carry out further studies to develop and evaluate communication skills training programs in dentistry education.