Korean J Med Educ.  2018 Sep;30(3):199-208. 10.3946/kjme.2018.94.

Correlation between nonverbal communication and objective structured clinical examination score in medical students

• Park SG
• Park KH

• KMID: 2435207
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3946/kjme.2018.94

Abstract

PURPOSE
Nonverbal communication (NVC) may be a crucial factor affecting effective communication between patients and medical students during the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE), but it has not been intensively studied. We examined NVC and its correlation with patient-physician interaction (PPI) in the OSCE.
METHODS
A total of 68 video recordings of routine check-up OSCEs were included. A checklist for NVC was developed that included seven nonverbal factors in a mute state (NVM) and four nonverbal factors in speech (NVS), and one point was assigned to each factor. The scores for history taking, PPI, NVM, and NVS were compared, and correlations of each score were evaluated.
RESULTS
Students with adequate facial expressions, accorded speech rate and voice volume, adequately matched voice tone, and few or no moments of unnecessary silence showed better PPI scores. The PPI score was correlated with history taking and the NVS score, but not the NVM score.
CONCLUSION
Our results suggest that NVS may be more influential to PPI during OSCEs than NVM. Communication teachers should help students to be better prepared to use both NVS and NVM properly.

Keyword

Nonverbal communication; Patient satisfaction; Medical history taking; Medical student; Medical education

MeSH Terms

Checklist
Education, Medical
Facial Expression
Humans
Medical History Taking
Nonverbal Communication*
Patient Satisfaction
Students, Medical*
Video Recording
Voice