Adaptation of the Communication Skills Attitude Scale (CSAS) to Surgical Residents in China

BACKGROUND: In modern China, conflicts between doctors and patients with their families have become increasingly serious. Lack of communication skills is one of the major challenges faced by many residents. Surgical residents' attitudes toward communication are of great significance to communication skills learning. The Communication Skills Attitude Scale (CSAS) is a widely validated and popularly used tool for assessing the attitudes of medical students toward communication skills. The aim of this study was to develop a Chinese version of the CSAS in order to explore attitudes toward communication skills among Chinese surgical residents and to test the psychometric properties of the modified instrument. METHODS: 1490 surgical residents among PGY1 to PGY3 were recruited in September 2017 to evaluate attitudes toward communication skills using the Chinese version of the CSAS in China. The reliability of the questionnaire and of each factor was assessed by Cronbach's a coefficients. Principal component analysis was used to evaluate construct validity. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS 22.0. RESULTS: Of 1490 surgical residents of PGY1 to PGY3, 1420 (95.03%) residents completed the questionnaires satisfactorily. An overall Cronbach's a coefficient of the CSAS was 0.919. The results of principal component analysis showed that the 2-factor structure, which explained 49.06% of the variance, produced an acceptable fit. Stratified analysis by demographic variables suggested that there may be differences based on gender and study year of residency in attitudes toward learning communication skills. CONCLUSIONS: The data suggest that the Chinese version of CSAS developed to assess surgery residents are feasible and provide valid and reliable evidence. Further research is necessary to explore and understand attitudes toward communication skills of surgical residents in China. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of Association of Program Directors in Surgery.