Evaluation of residents in professionalism and communication skills in south China

ABSTRACT

To evaluate the resident doctors' competency in professionalism and communication skills in south China. We conducted this cross-sectional study in 8 hospitals, in 4 provinces of southern China from October to December 2007. The evaluation included 148 resident doctors. A 360-degree instrument from Education Outcomes Service Group [EOS group] of the Arizona Medical Education Consortium was developed and used by the attending physicians, residents, and their peers, nurses, patients, and office staff in this study. All data were entered into a computerized database and analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 13.0 [SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA] for Windows [Trade Mark]. Our results indicated that the instruments are internally consistent [Cronbach's alpha >0.90]. The principal components analysis with varimax rotation for the attending-, resident self-evaluation, nurse-, patient-, office staff- and resident peer-rated questionnaires explained 70.68%, 76.13%, 77.02%, 76.37%, 75.51%, and 72.05% of the total variance. Significant differences [p<0.05] were found among different evaluators. The 360-degree instrument appears to be reliable in evaluating a residents' competency in professionalism and communication skills. Information from the assessment may provide feedback to residents