Assessment of communication skills and related factors in Dental School teachers in 2010

In order to communicate effectively with their students all teachers need verbal and non-verbal communication skills. The aim of this study was to evaluate these skills in the faculty members of the Shahed Dental School in 2010.

Cross-sectional survey was done by asking the students to fill up a questionnaire regarding their opinions about the communication skills of their teachers, based on five-item Likert scale(very poor, poor, fair, good, very good).. The reliability of the questionnaire was tested in a pilot study on 10 students for one week by test-retest method and a reliability of 85/0 was obtained.

Seven hundred and fifty-five students were included in the study 68.2% were females. Their opinion was as follows: 13.6% rated their teachers to be very good as regards communication skills, 34.3% as good, 45.4% as fair, and 6.6% as poor. For 48% of students, communication skills of their teachers were acceptable and for 52 percent these skills were poor.

It seems that interventional programs are needed to improve communication between the faculty members and their students.