Dental hygiene and dental students' patient communication skills: Is public speaking education relevant?

Commission of Dental Accreditation (CODA) Standards require graduates to be competent in patient-provider communication. The objectives were (a) to assess dental hygiene and dental students' general communication-related attitudes and self-reported skills related to establishing rapport, utilizing facilitative listening, and summarizing, as well as having oral health literacy-related expertise; (b) to evaluate students' prior public speaking experiences, their motivation to learn more about public speaking and evaluations of the public speaking-related educational intervention; (c) and explore the relationships between communication-related attitudes and skills and public speaking-related education.

Anonymous web-based survey data were collected from 43 dental hygiene and 206 dental students after they participated in a zoom-based educational intervention entitled "Utilizing Public Speaking Principles in Patient-Dental Care Provider Communication: An Exploration."

On average, dental hygiene and dental students had positive communication-related attitudes and agreed that communication is important (5-point answer scale: 5 = agree strongly: dental hygiene students: Mean = 4.00; dental students: Mean = 4.08; p = 0.487). Both groups agreed that they were comfortable with establishing rapport (3.98 vs. 4.08; p = 0.151), summarizing information (3.92 vs. 3.86; p = 0.309) and considering patients' oral health literacy skills in their communication (3.69 vs. 3.81; p = 0.108). However, dental hygiene students agreed less than dental students that they had facilitative listening skills (3.84 vs. 4.00; p = 0.034), had prior public speaking experiences (2.84 vs. 3.18; p = 0.004) and were less motivated to learn more about public speaking (3.06 vs. 3.68; p < 0.001). They also rated the educational intervention less positively than dental students (4.12 vs. 4.54; p < 0.001). Patient communication skills correlated significantly with public speaking considerations.

Students' communication-related attitudes are positive, but they are not likely to have education about public speaking. Dental educators should realize that students are interested in learning about public speaking and that learning about public speaking principles can enrich their patient-provider communication skills.