Communication skills in the emergency room: An interactive computer-assisted approach

The aim of this study was to test whether an interactive computer assisted instructional (CAI) module for teaching communication skills can be used to replace clinical time (one-to-one, preceptor-student time), classroom time and readings on these skills in a traditional emergency clinical experience.;The following questions formed the basis for the assumptions and hypotheses in the study. (1) Can CAI replace clinical nursing time? (2) Can interactive CAI be designed to teach microskills? (3) Can these skills be designed to be setting specific for nursing? (4) Will nursing students perform better after CAI experience than after a traditional clinical experience? (5) Will students be as satisfied with this method as with the traditional clinical experience?;Using the Apple Macintosh computer, the program MORE, and Gazda's microskills in counseling (Interpersonal Communication: A Handbook for Health Professionals, Gazda, Childers, & Walters, 1982), I developed interactive computer scenarios that provided the students with realistic emergency situations that taught the communication skills necessary for eliciting physical and emotional data from patients.;I gathered background data, pretested, and posttested, and asked for satisfaction ratings from senior nursing students in an emergency clinical over three semesters. The control group received the traditional clinical and classroom but the experimental group substituted 10 hours of computer time for 24 hours of clinical and 5 hours of classroom time.;I hypothesized an increase in scores pretest to posttest in the experimental group as measured by the Nursing Index of Responding and Global Rating Scale by Gazda et al., (1982). The hypothesis was confirmed by the Mann-Whitney U Test at the.004 level of significance.;The conclusions drawn from this study were: (1) CAI can replace clinical nursing time in teaching communication skills. (2) Interactive CAI can be designed to teach microskills. (3) These skills can be designed to be setting specific for nursing. (4) Nursing students will perform better after a CAI experience than after a traditional clinical experience. (5) Students will be as satisfied with this method as with the traditional clinical experience.