Evaluation of residents in professionalism and communication skills in south China

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the resident doctors' competency in professionalism and communication skills in south China.

METHODS: 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®.

RESULTS: 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.

CONCLUSION: 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.