Assessing student pharmacist communication skills: Development and implementation of a communication rubric

Communication between healthcare providers and those they serve has become increasingly important as the need to prevent and manage chronic conditions has increased. To adequately learn these skills, future healthcare providers must be trained and assessed prior to entry into practice.

With the implementation of an integrated curriculum, the Harrison School of Pharmacy developed a communication rubric to assess student pharmacists' patient communication skills. Developed over five stages, the communication rubric contained seven criteria with three standards or performance levels. Prior to finalizing the rubric, faculty tested the rubric with 56 standardized persons (SPs) to determine its readability, functionality, and grader consistency, and also collected student perceptions of the rubric for feedback purposes.

At the conclusion of the 2017/18 academic year, 66.5% of second- and third-professional year students (P2s and P3s) somewhat agreed to strongly agreed that reviewing the rubric helped improve their overall patient communication; 65% of students felt that feedback was more substantial than the previous checklist. Of the P3s surveyed, 73% indicated that they preferred the new rubric.

The integration of the new communication rubric allowed for richer, and more meaningful feedback. The addition of multiple performance levels allowed students to focus on specific areas for improvement.

The communication rubric was successfully integrated into the curriculum, particularly with objective structured clinical examinations. With its integration into other curriculum areas, the communication skills of student pharmacists may be further enhanced.