Learning to listen: improving students' communication with disabled people

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Education
• Communication Skills Training
• Interprofessional Learning

Background:

• Action research was employed to develop a workshop for interprofessional student groups.
• The primary goal was to enhance listening skills among students in health and social care fields.

Purpose of the Study:

• To enable students to interprofessionally reflect on human factors crucial for effective communication.
• Utilized storytelling by disabled individuals and their carers to highlight communication nuances.

Main Methods:

• Employed qualitative data collection through focus groups and one-to-one interviews with students and service users over three pilot cycles.
• Transcribed data were analyzed using grounded theory principles.
• Quantitative data from student learning assessments were analyzed using SPSS.

Main Results:

• Cyclical development of the project was informed by data from each pilot phase.
• Conducted 20 service user interviews and involved 109 students across the pilots.
• Analysis revealed significant learning opportunities and insights into improving communication for safe practice.

Conclusions:

• The educational process benefited both health and social care students and service users.
• Meaningful interactions provided students with valuable feedback on communication skills.
• The final workshop design established a learning model emphasizing the human aspect of healthcare delivery.