Communication Training for the Provision of Psychological Assessment Feedback: An Exploratory Randomized Controlled Study

In psychology, few studies have focused on the programs used to train the skills needed to communicate the psychological assessment feedback. This exploratory study assesses two types of analogue online training in this context. Sixty-nine graduate psychology students were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: simulation-based learning (SBL) with either a standardized patient (SP) or 360° immersive videos (360IV), or a waiting list. Both types of training targeted skills related to empathic communication, improvement of patient understanding, and participation in decision making. Pre-, post-, and follow-up assessments were based on recorded role-play with patient–actors. First, the skills trained were assessed by blind raters. Then, patient–actors assessed students’ empathy and their confidence in the students in their role as clinicians. Finally, students assessed their own empathy, self-efficacy, and stress. The study aimed to explore whether skills are improved in both experimental conditions (SBL-SP and SBL-360IV) as compared with the control condition. Results showed that SBL-SP resulted in improvements on all assessments. No significant changes were observed in the 360IV condition for blind rater assessments, whereas significant improvements were observed when the patient–actors assessed empathy. In conclusion, SBL-SP appears to be effective in improving clinical communication during psychological assessment feedback, while SBL-360IV appears promising but requires further finetuning.