Acceptability and efficacy of a communication skills training for nursing students: Building empathy and discussing complex situations

Nurses must demonstrate effective communication across complex interpersonal domains, as emphasized by numerous professional healthcare organizations. However, formal communication skills training has been only modestly integrated into baccalaureate nursing programs, and of those studied systematically, there are notable methodological concerns. The current study focused on application of a well-researched communication program (Comskil) to student nurses completing summer internships at a comprehensive cancer center as part of their clinical education. The Comskil training program for student nurses is an in-person, day-long training that includes three sections: responding empathically to patients; discussing death, dying, and end-of-life goals of care; and responding to challenging family interactions. Student nurse participants provided strongly favorable perceptions of the program, with 90% indicating that they agreed or strongly agreed with all perception items. A significant pre-to post-training improvement in self-reported confidence was observed (p < .01). Additionally, pre- and post-training observational coding of standardized patient assessments indicated significant improvements in usage of the following skill categories: total skill use, information organization, and empathic communication (p < .001). Overall, these results suggest that communication skills training for student nurses is a feasible, acceptable, and effective way of increasing confidence and skills usage in complex clinical scenarios.