Listening and communication form a large part of every clinical and interprofessional encounter impacting clinical practice, the quality of health care, and client outcomes. Being able to listen mindfully, sensitively and with authentic intent enables clinicians to understand clients’ worldviews, needs, priorities, concerns and hopes; thus establishing a common ground that assists clients in making informed decisions and moving forward (King et al., 2012). Despite being a core competency across disciplines, there is a lack of training of these skills in University-level curricula.
We present research findings from a mixed-methods pilot study that focused on assessing the impact and procedures of a comprehensive listening skill educational intervention for service providers. We highlight the key features of the intervention that contributed to learning and share our work developing a listening curriculum for pre-service students. This innovative intervention exemplifies current best practices in knowledge mobilization, including multifaceted learning opportunities (e.g., self-evaluation, feedback on performance, interdisciplinary group discussion, simulation and experiential learning, self and guided critical reflection) to enhance listening skills.
Clinicians participated in: group observation and discussion of 6 inter-professional video simulations of clinical listening scenarios, 2 individual solution-focused coaching sessions on personal listening goals, and 3 live clinical simulations with standardized clients who were trained in giving feedback. The Effective Listening and Interactive Communication Scale (ELICS, King, et al., 2012) was administered pre- and post-intervention. The intervention was found to significantly impact participants’ listening behaviours. Participants described the intervention as an intense learning experience that resulted in immediate changes to their clinical and inter-professional practice.
Attendees will have an opportunity to assess their own listening behaviours and learn about how they can use the Complexity Rating Scale for Clinical Simulation Situations (King, et al., 2014) to determine the level of complexity of simulations they create for developing student learning.
References
King, G., Servais, M., Bolack, L., Shepherd, T., & Willoughby C. (2012). Development of a measure to assess effective listening and interactive communication skills in the delivery of children’s rehabilitation service. Disability and Rehabilitation, 34(6), 459-469. doi:10.3109/09638288.2011.608143
King, G., Shepherd, T. A., Servais, M., Willoughby, C., Bolack, L., Strachan, D., Moodie, S., Baldwin, P., Knickle, K., Parker, K., Savage, D., & McNaughton, N. (2014). Developing authentic clinical simulations for effective listening and communication in pediatric rehabilitation service delivery. Developmental Neurorehabilitation (Early online). doi: 10.3109/17518423.2014.989461
