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Abstract
Background: The MAAS-Global (MG) is widely used to assess doctor–patient communication skills. Reliability and validity have been investigated, but little is known about its dimensionality. Assuming physicians tend to adopt certain styles or preferences in their communication with patients, a multi-dimensional structure of the MG can be hypothesized.
Aim: This study investigates the dimensional structure of the MG and explores the validity of this structure by studying the relationship between potential MG sub-scales and general practice speciality trainees’ personal characteristics.
Methods: Communication skills of 68 first-year trainees in a two-station objective structured clinical examination were assessed. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the resulting MG item-scores. With t-tests and correlational analysis, the relationship between MG scores and trainees’ personal characteristics was examined.
Results: Two well-interpretable factors were found, representing patient-oriented and task-oriented communication skills. Being born in the Netherlands and empathy were positively associated with overall communication skills. Prior communication skills training was exclusively related to task-oriented communication skills. Empathy was associated with patient-oriented, but not with task-oriented communication skills.
Conclusion: The two-dimensional structure of the MG may be valuable in gaining a better understanding of factors influencing the acquisition of communication skills. This may be used to optimize teaching methods in communication skills training.