Learning and teaching of patient-centred communication skills in allied healthcare manual therapy students: A systematic review

Objective: Analogous to medical professionals, allied healthcare manual therapies such as osteopathy, chiropractic and physical therapy/physiotherapy rely on patient centred communication skills to optimise positive outcomes of clinical encounters. The objective of this review is to identify how communication skills are taught and learned within these specific professions.Methods: CINAHL, AMED, PubMED, ERIC and PsychINFO were searched in April 2018 (search years: inception-2018). Papers were independently selected by two researchers. A narrative synthesis of results was formulated.Results: Six papers on how patient centred communication skills are being developed in the undergraduate manual therapy healthcare professions were identified. All excluding one paper reported interventions used in undergraduate physical therapy/physiotherapy. The additional paper provided a summary of teaching methods used in undergraduate physical therapy/physiotherapy university programmes across the United Kingdom. Training programmes employed a combination of instruction, modelling and problem-based learning. Only one paper measured the effectiveness of their training to identify if the changes in the students' patient centred communication skills were observable.Conclusion: There is little evidence to indicate communication skills training is being provided to chiropractic and osteopathy students. However, communication skills training is being provided to physical therapists/physiotherapists and is varied in the types of teaching techniques used, the duration of teaching and the timing of teaching around clinical placements.