Teaching conflict management to medical students: a randomized controlled trial

Conflict is an inevitable aspect of healthcare team collaboration. Effective conflict management training can improve the performance of healthcare teams. This study aimed to investigate the effect of conflict management education based on the Fogg model on the attitude of medical students toward conflict management.

This randomized controlled trial was conducted at Tehran University of Medical Sciences in 2022–2023. Freshman medical students volunteered to participate in this study. Then, they were randomly divided into intervention (12 groups of 4 people, n = 48) and control (12 groups of 4 people, n = 48) groups. The intervention groups received Fogg model-based education, and the control groups were taught using a conventional method. Student attitudes toward conflict management were evaluated using the Conflict Management Attitude questionnaire.

The intervention group showed significantly higher mean total attitude scores and scores for subscales 2 and 3 in the post-test compared to the control group (P = 0.003, P = 0.001, and P = 0.001, respectively). When the pre-test was included as a covariate, ANCOVA results showed a significant increase in the total attitude score of students (P = 0.010) as well as in the scores for subscales 2 and 3 following the educational intervention (P = 0.004, and P = 0.003, respectively).

This study showed that intervention in conflict management using the Fogg model can improve the attitude of medical students toward conflict management. This approach can help medical educators use creative, model-based methods in teaching conflict management to prepare students to work in healthcare teams.