Interviewing skill: the effects of ultra-brief training for general practitioners. A preliminary report

Concepts of interviewing skill and of appropriate training and evaluation are briefly reviewed. It is hypothesized that if goals and skills relevant to a specific clinical interview can be identified and modelled in advance then even very brief training can improve outcome. An experiment is described in which three randomly selected general practitioners conducted, separately, test interviews with the same role played 'patient'. These interviews were repeated after a 'goal focusing' exercise and again after a modelling and instruction exercise. All interviews were telerecorded and subsequently blindly rated for impact on the 'patient'. The results suggest powerful training effects. The drawbacks of the study, such as lack of controls, are discussed. The similarity of evaluation raters who were 'behaviour' orientated and those who were 'psycho-dynamics' orientated is noted and it is suggested that agreed concepts of effective interviewing may be within reach.