Identifying undergraduate medical students' attitudes towards communication skills learning: a pilot study

Despite the wealth of literature surrounding communication curricula within undergraduate medical education, there is a dearth of research that identifies medical students' attitudes towards such curricula. To address this gap in the research literature, first-year medical students at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom were invited to discuss their attitudes towards communication skills learning. One audiotaped focus-group discussion was conducted with five medical students. The audiotape was transcribed in full and the transcript was analysed manually using theme analysis. Three attitude-related themes emerged from the focus group discussion: (1) students' positive attitudes towards communication skills learning; (2) students' negative attitudes towards communication skills learning; and (3) relationships between students' attitudes and their education, age and communicative abilities. The findings within each of these themes are discussed in this paper and their implications for further research are outlined.