Effectiveness of Communication Skills Training in Medical Students Using Simulated Patients or Volunteer Outpatients

Communication skills are the vital basis for patient-doctor interactions in undergraduate medical education. With excellent patient-physician interaction and communication, patients will likely build better rapport and trust with the physician. This allows all the necessary information to be divulged with the reassurance of confidentiality and devise appropriate investigations and treatment plans that patients would be more inclined to follow. The most common and effective ways of teaching communication skills to medical students are by using simulated patients and volunteer outpatients. However, which types of patients to use for better development of practical communication skills training. Establishing the demonstrable difference between using two kinds of patients would refine the training scheme for students. This would produce doctors that have practical communication skills and enhance their care to assist patients on their road to recovery or palliative care. This review compares and establishes the effectiveness of medical students’ communication skills training using simulated patients and volunteer outpatients about the adult learning theories. This research is carried out following a critical review of internationally reputed guidelines from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the General Medical Council (GMC). Several search terms were used on various online databases such as Medline (Ovid), PubMed, and Academic Medicine. A thorough selection process was applied using the inclusion and exclusion criteria to narrow the search. Four studies related to this review’s aim were collected and critically analyzed. The methods of obtaining the studies were structured using the PRISMA guidelines. The studies showed that one study favored volunteer outpatients while the other preferred having simulated patients. Another study showed that students considered both types of patients essential for communication skills training. All the studies presented the strengths and weaknesses of both simulated and volunteer outpatients. Discussion of the validity of all analyses was based on the CASP criteria. Study design, sample selection, and biases were scrutinized for each study. Various adult learning theories were used to correlate the effects of the communication skills training. In conclusion, simulated patients are more useful for pre-clinical years, intimate examination, and giving instructions about the physical examination. Whereas volunteer outpatients are put to better use in clinical years to incorporate more medical aspects such as obtaining a differential diagnosis, management of illness, and procedural techniques. Introducing different types of patients based on their study progression and topic of discussion could be adapted.