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 patient-centeredness. 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.