The Liverpool brief assessment of communication skills in the making of doctors

The teaching of clinical communication skills is gaining importance in medical schools. There is a need to design feasible assessments that are credible to faculty, students and the profession.Aim: To design, and assess the reliability and validity of a new communication skills assessment system (the Liverpool Communication Skills Assessment Scale-LCSAS, and the Global Simulated Patient Rating Scale-GSPRS) for employment in OSCEs.Participants: The first three annual intakes of students to the new medical curriculum at Liverpool Medical School (n = 600). Two further sub samples of 1st year (n = 60) and 2nd year students (n 80) were included for further validation purposes in separate studies.Statistical analysis: Intra class correlation coefficients and generalisability coefficients were employed to assess reliability of the LCSAS and GSPRS. Validity was tested by examining predicted relationships using pearson product moment correlation coefficients.Results and conclusions: The LCSAS and GSPRS showed reasonable evidence for their reliability and validity although further work is recommended.