JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Effective doctor-patient communication is fundamental to the delivery of safe and effective patient care. Acquisition of communication skills is required by medical training programmes globally and taught throughout undergraduate and postgraduate medical education. Traditional workforce intensive communication skills teaching faces pressure from student, staff and workload factors. Digital technologies have been utilised to alleviate these pressures; however, the scope of their use is unknown and further evaluation within pedagogical theory would advance educational practice development.

Objective:

To comprehensively summarise the available evidence regarding all digital technology modalities used for teaching and learning communication skills in undergraduate and postgraduate medical education, evaluate the evidence in the context of educational theory and identify gaps for future research.

Methods:

This scoping review followed JBI methodology, and reported adhering to PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Eligible studies targeted all digital technology modalities used for teaching or learning of communication skills within undergraduate or postgraduate medical education, without country or language restriction. Four databases (Medline, Embase, CINAHL, ERIC) were searched from inception to August 2025. A descriptive analysis was used to summarise the studies.

Results:

From 10,614 studies identified, 110 were eligible. The majority (74%) were published in the last 10 years and 79% were undertaken in North America and Europe. In total, 58% of studies focused on undergraduate learners. Common modalities used were recording-based tools (44.5%), livestream platforms (30%) and virtual patient simulators (21%). General communication and history taking was the most frequent topic. Only 26% assessed outcomes with a validated objective measure. Beneficial effects most often arose from study designs with limited methodological rigour. The majority of studies (75.5%) assessed outcomes at Kirkpatrick Level 2, with very few evaluating behaviour change or patient-level outcomes.

Conclusions:

Digital technologies are increasingly being used to support communication skills training in medical education. While exhibiting potential, the evidence base for effectiveness, particularly in newer modalities is weak. Greater methodological rigour of intervention evaluations would enhance confidence in the findings of future syntheses. Further robust evaluations comparing the outcomes of technologies with traditional methods of training, and the impact of these on learner behaviours and patient outcomes are warranted before wide-scale implementation.