Effects of Competency – Based Training to Improve Health Communication Skills for Public Health Students in Sakon Nakhon Rajabhat University

The Effects of Competency – Based Training to Improve Health Communication skills

Abstract

The improvement of health communication skills is crucial for graduate production in public health professional as they play a major role to give update and reliable health information to people. This quasi-experimental research aimed to assess the effects of competency-based training to improve health communication skills for public health students in Rajabhat Sakon Nakhon University. The samples were purposively selected from voluntary students who currently studied in public health program, totally 67 samples. They enrolled the 15- hour, 7- learning unit competency -based training which emphasized knowledge, skills and attitude of health communication regarding professional roles.  The questionnaire to assess self-perception of the levels of ability comprising general and health communication skills was used for pre- and posttest data collection. The comparison of the differences of scores between pre- and post-training was determined by Pair t-test. The results revealed that the samples had significantly higher posttest scores either general or health communication skills than that of pre-test (p= 0.006 and p< 0.001). Therefore, the integration of this competency-based training into the existing public health program’s learning processes might encourage better students’ health communication skills.