Patient involvement in dental education: communication skills
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Using patients as educators: A qualitative study to explore issues surrounding using feedback from patients on the communication skills of undergraduate dental students
IRAS ID
161981
Contact name
Jillian Pooler
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Peninsula School of Dentistry
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 10 months, 30 days
Research summary
Dental education is about training the dentists of tomorrow so that they can look after our mouths in the future. We want patients to be included in dental students’ education. We value the views of patients and think they are important. The teachers at the University of Plymouth Peninsula School of Dentistry are looking at how they teach communication skills to their dental students. When a dentist communicates well, their patients are happier with their treatment, their mouths are healthier and they are less worried. Some students use dental jargon when they are talking. We want the students to learn to talk in clearly understandable ways that patients will understand.
We think the students can learn a lot from hearing what their patients think about their communication skills, so they can help students learn what they do well and what could be done better. We want to find out from patients and students whether this would be a good thing to do and what would be the best way to do this. We want to know hypothetically what would help and what would make it hard for a patient to talk about their dental student and then for the student to hear this information.
At the moment this is hardly ever done. We want to change this and find a way to do this in the best way for the patient and the student. We will hold focus groups with the Year 2 students at the Peninsula School of Dentistry and the patients that they treat at the Devonport Dental Education Facility.
The study will last until September 2015 and the participants will be asked to attend a 60 minute focus group. They may also be asked to comment on the initial findings after the focus groups have met.REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - South Yorkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/YH/1316
Date of REC Opinion
24 Dec 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion