The effect of comics and Interprofessional community dialogue on health humanities, empathy, and communication among healthcare students

Healthcare providers' health humanities, empathy, and communication effectiveness positively correlate with care recipient outcomes. These abilities can be enhanced by teaching design courses. In particular, comics and community dialogues are suitable for cultivating professional students' abilities. However, this method has not yet been used in studies involving healthcare professional students. This study develops a Comics and Interprofessional Community Dialogue (CICD) action programme for healthcare professional students to be used during emotion management courses and to evaluate the effects of this programme on changes in students' health humanities competence, empathy, and communication effectiveness. An additional aim is to determine the predictors of effective communication. A single-group longitudinal study is conducted with professional healthcare students recruited from a medical university. The students completed three questionnaires: the Health Humanities Competence Scale, the Jefferson Scale of Empathy, and the Communication Effectiveness Profile at the beginning of the semester (Time 1), mid-semester (Time 2), and the end of the semester (Time 3). Changes in the scores for each questionnaire are analysed using generalised estimation models. The study's findings show that at Time 3, communication effectiveness is significantly higher than at Times 1 and 2 and is positively related to empathy and health humanities competence. These results indicate that a CICD action programme improves healthcare professional students' communication effectiveness and that students' empathy and health humanities affect their communication competence. Health humanities competence and empathy are enhanced with a CICD, which helps healthcare professional students improve their communication effectiveness. Furthermore, the semester period, empathy, and health humanities competencies are predictors of healthcare professional students' communication effectiveness competencies. •A Comics and Interprofessional Community Dialogue action plan was developed and the first study to design and test this approach specifically for healthcare students.•Healthcare students' health humanities, empathy, and communication skills were significantly enhanced by the Comics and Interprofessional Community Dialogue action programme.•Health humanities and empathy play a key role in improving communication effectiveness among healthcare students.