Abstract
Introduction: Effective communication is essential for pharmacists delivering information to patients and healthcare professionals. Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) is a gold standard tool for evaluating the competency of pharmacist-in-training communication skills. Alsubaie et al.¹ identified the effectiveness of pharmacy students using politeness strategies to avoid imposition on patients and causing embarrassment during OSCE. Currently, teaching linguistic tactics isn’t part of the Australia pharmacy education curriculum and there has been limited research into their impact of use. This study investigated the impact of the use of linguistic modifiers i.e. hedges and intensifiers by pharmacy students on their communication grades in an OSCE assessing shared decision making.
Methods: A retrospective study was conducted of 30 OSCE videos (10 from each of good, average and poor communication grade) of fourth year undergraduate pharmacy students who completed teamwork OSCE that required them to speak to both simulated doctor and carer. Discourse analysis was conducted to elicit the number and types of hedges and intensifiers used.
Results: Overall, students used more hedges than intensifiers when interacting with others. There were less hedges amongst good communicators in carers’ interactions whereas a consistent number of hedges in doctors’ interaction amongst all communication grades. However, there were no trends for intensifiers used in both interactions.
Conclusion: There was a potential impact in carer-student interactions regarding the number of hedges used. Good communicators were able to adjust their use of hedges to soften the communication and avoid imposing on carers’ preferences whereas poor communicators couldn’t. Purposive use of politeness theory in teaching helps raise awareness in students’ communication. Future research could investigate whether use of linguistic strategies lead to better uptake of pharmacist-led recommendations.
Methods: A retrospective study was conducted of 30 OSCE videos (10 from each of good, average and poor communication grade) of fourth year undergraduate pharmacy students who completed teamwork OSCE that required them to speak to both simulated doctor and carer. Discourse analysis was conducted to elicit the number and types of hedges and intensifiers used.
Results: Overall, students used more hedges than intensifiers when interacting with others. There were less hedges amongst good communicators in carers’ interactions whereas a consistent number of hedges in doctors’ interaction amongst all communication grades. However, there were no trends for intensifiers used in both interactions.
Conclusion: There was a potential impact in carer-student interactions regarding the number of hedges used. Good communicators were able to adjust their use of hedges to soften the communication and avoid imposing on carers’ preferences whereas poor communicators couldn’t. Purposive use of politeness theory in teaching helps raise awareness in students’ communication. Future research could investigate whether use of linguistic strategies lead to better uptake of pharmacist-led recommendations.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages | 149 |
| Number of pages | 1 |
| Publication status | Published - 2025 |
| Event | Life Long Learning in Pharmacy 2025 - Duration: 7 Jul 2025 → 10 Jul 2025 Conference number: 15th https://www.lllpharm2025.com/ https://www.lllpharm2025.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/LLLP-2025-E-book-of-abstracts-25.06.pdf (published abstracts) |
Conference
| Conference | Life Long Learning in Pharmacy 2025 |
|---|---|
| Abbreviated title | LLLP 2025 |
| Period | 7/07/25 → 10/07/25 |
| Internet address |