Effectiveness of communication skills training for anxiety caused by dealing with Corona virus in Medical student of Islamic Azad University medical science branch

Abstract

Background and Aim: The present study was conducted to determine the effect of communication skills training on corona anxiety in students of medical sciences branch. Methods: This study was a quasi-experimental with a pretest-posttest design with a control group. The research population was students of Islamic Azad University of Tehran Medical Sciences Branch in the 2021-2022 academic years. The research sample was 170 people who were selected by simple random sampling method and randomly replaced by two groups of 85 people including experimental and control groups. The experimental group 4 sessions of 120-minute for one month underwent the communication skills training and the control group did not receive any training during this period and remained on the waiting list for training. The research instruments were demographic information form and anxiety inventory scale. Data were analyzed by tests of chi-square, independent t and univariate analysis of covariance in SPSS-26 software. Results: The findings of chi-square, independent t tests showed that the experimental and control groups did not significantly difference in terms of gender and mean age (P>0.05). Also, the findings results of univariate analysis of covariance test showed that communication skills training reduced anxiety in medical students (P<0.001). Conclusion: The results indicated the effective role of communication skills training on reducing anxiety in medical students. Therefore, health professionals can use the communication skills training method along with other effective training methods to improve the psychological health specially reducing and controlling anxiety in medical science student.