The effect of communication skills training on flexibility, self-responsibility and professional commitment of Arak dental students in relation to patients

Communication skills are among the basic skills for living in the present age. Due to their job position, physicians must have sufficient skills to communicate properly with patients to enjoy comfort, satisfaction and health. The purpose of this study was the effect of communication skills training on flexibility, self-responsibility and professional commitment of Arak dental students in relation to patients. This study was a quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test with a control group. The statistical population included all dental students of Arak State University of Medical Sciences in 2019, who were selected by available sampling method of 24 people and randomly divided into experimental groups (n=12) and control (n= 12). After selecting the sample and performing a pre-test on both groups, the solution-based treatment program was performed on the experimental group during 11 sessions of 90 minutes (2 sessions per week) and no intervention was performed on the control group. Research instruments included the 20-item Cognitive Flexibility Questionnaire by Dennis and Vanderwall (2010), and the 16-item Responsibility Questionnaire by Salkovskis et al., (2010) And the Clikeman & Henning (2020) 15-item Professional Commitment Questionnaire. To analyze the data from statistical methods of multivariate analysis of covariance and analysis of covariance was used. The results showed that there was a significant difference between the mean scores of flexibility post-test and self-responsibility knowledge of experimental and control students. Based on the results, it can be said that communication skills training has an impact on students' flexibility and self-responsibility. Therefore, the intervention method of communication skills training, due to strengthening the mental ability to control unpleasant and inflexible thoughts, causes mental flexibility and avoidance of automatic thoughts and irrational cognitive distortions in the individual. And performing student-professional duties strengthens them positively.