Effect of medical students' ethnicity on their attitudes towards consultation skills and final year examination performance.

AIM: The study had two aims. The first aim was to examine the relationship between final year medical students' ethnicity and their attitudes towards consultation skills. The second aim was to investigate the relationship between ethnicity and final year performance.

METHOD: A cross-sectional study was undertaken of all final year medical students in 1995 and 1996, both before and after their attachment through the Department of General Practice at Monash University, Australia. A questionnaire was designed to assess students' attitudes (views of importance and confidence) towards consultation skills. Also, records of final year performance were obtained from the University.

RESULTS: Five clusters of consultation skills were formed through factor analysis: communication skills, difficult consultations, traditional diagnostic methods, routine management and life threatening conditions. There were no significant differences in students' attitudes towards these consultation skills based on country of birth, language, or student status preattachment. The only significant postattachment difference was that students born in non-Western countries placed a significantly higher importance on communication skills and the traditional diagnostic method than students born in Western countries. There were significant differences in final year performance between students across all three parameters of ethnic diversity. Non-Western born students performed worse than Western born students. Students who preferred using a language other than English also performed worse than those students preferring English. International students performed worse than students with Australian citizenship or permanent residency.,

CONCLUSIONS: The only significant difference regarding attitudes to consultation skills was that non-Western born students placed significantly greater importance on communication skills and the traditional diagnostic method postattachment than Western born students. No significant differences were found in attitudes preattachment. There were significant differences in performance, with students of ethnic background performing consistently poorer in all the final year assessment parameters analysed.