(139) The impact of personality type on student pharmacists' communication skills

Objective : To assess the impact of student personality types on communication skills during patient interactions.

Methods: Students from four pharmacy institutions completed a self-assessment Qualtrics survey following a patient counseling skills assessment. The survey collected demographics, work history, and Myers-Briggs personality type (www.16personalities.com), and assessed confidence in communicating during patient interactions, including reflection on personality traits impacting communication skills. Survey results were compared to communication skill assessment scores from faculty at each institution using a validated rubric.

Results: A total of Fifty (50) third-year student pharmacists completed the survey. The average communication skills assessment score was 12.5 (out of 15). Variable Myers-Briggs personality types were reported, with 64% Introvert and 32% Extrovert subtypes. Those with Introvert personalities scored slightly higher (average score of 13) compared to Extroverts (average score of 12). Students self-assessed their patient communication skills as Needs Improvement (22%), Good (50%), and Excellent (28%). A majority (92%) indicated that personality traits affect patient communication skills, selecting Feeling (28%) and Introvert (22%) as the attributes with the most impact. Other less common traits included Sensing (12%), Judging (12%), Perceiving (10%), Extrovert (8%), Thinking (4%), and Intuitive (4%). Students noted factors for why and how personality type attributes affect communication skills, such as: empathy; confidence; interpersonal connection; and personality type effects on world perceptions.

Conclusions: Personality type may impact individual communication skills, and certain attributes could influence more than others. Further investigation into how these attributes impact communication skills is needed to apprise pharmacy student communication skills development and assessments.