Using the consultation-based reassurance questionnaire to assess reassurance skills among physiotherapy students: reliability and responsiveness

Background: There is a robust body of evidence suggesting that communication skills during consultations are associated with patient satisfaction and adherence. Training practitioners to improve communication and reassurance delivery is therefore desirable. The Consultation-Based Reassurance Questionnaire (CRQ) for people presenting with back pain has not been tested as a tool to examine the reliability and responsiveness of communication training for practitioners. Objective: To translate and examine the reliability of the CRQ and to explore its ability to detect change (responsiveness) before and after a single session of training in communication skills. Methods: Thirty-five simulated consultations were recorded. 36 second-year physiotherapy students took part, either as a simulated patient or a simulated physiotherapist. All videotape simulations were rated independently by two trained observers, using the CRQ. Results: Correlations indicate that the two raters were significantly and highly correlated (r = 0.9, 95% CI 0.797–0.951). The responsiveness statistics were in the moderate range for the total CRQ score, with moderate responsiveness range for data-gathering and relationship-building, and acceptable responsiveness for generic and cognitive reassurance. Conclusion: The CRQ Scale shows good reliability and acceptable levels of responsiveness to detect change before and after training in communication skills in physiotherapy students. The scale requires testing in real-life settings to establish better responsiveness.