A Preceptor Training Program Focused on Interpersonal Skills and Related Themes

This chapter presents the first of two programs developed in the integrated training-and-research project that constitutes the core of this book: a program for preceptors focused on interpersonal skills and related themes as discussed in Chapters 1 , 2 , 4 , and 5 , incorporating all methodological concepts from Chapter 3 . In line with the stone-in-the-lake metaphor introduced in Chapter 1 , the rationale behind this program has been that empowering preceptors through the development of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that help them to develop and maintain good relations with their residents will result in these residents developing and maintaining better relations with their colleagues as well as with their patients and caregivers. As argued in Chapter 1 , healthcare teams with better relations are better equipped to facilitate job satisfaction, clinical competence, and patient satisfaction, as well as to reduce the risk of burnout of professionals and increase confidence on the part of patients and their caregivers to share all information needed for good person-centered care. This chapter reports on the development and implementation of the preceptor program and how it has been contributing to relations between preceptors and residents, and between residents and their colleagues as well as their patients and caregivers. A group of 10 preceptors from different specialties at Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital was followed during 7 months with four blocks of weekly questionnaires (one questionnaire per week, six weeks per block) spaced around three training periods of 2–4 days each. The questionnaire was the same throughout the period and combined series of Likert-type items and an open-ended question regarding the perceived relation with their resident. Simultaneously, their resident (in the second, third or fourth year of their residency program)—who did not know if their preceptor was a participant in a training program or what content was covered during the program—responded on a weekly basis to a similar questionnaire aimed at the same relation between preceptor and resident. Finally, at the beginning and towards the end of the 7-month period, colleagues and patients (or their caregivers) of the residents—who did not know about the preceptors’ training program either—were contacted with similar questions regarding the relation with their resident. The narrative data resulting from the open-ended questions was subjected a multi-stage multi-coder procedure, which resulted in a range of qualitative examples relating to the content of the program and possible effects on preceptors and other stakeholders studied as well as metrics along with the rating data which were subjected to both group-level analysis (i.e., multilevel analysis) and individual analysis. Succinctly put, the findings indicate moderate positive effects of training at group level for both preceptors and residents, and larger positive effects for some individuals. For these two groups, conform the stone-in-the-lake metaphor, there is some evidence of a delay in the occurrence of the positive effect at the level of residents. Implications of these findings and limitations are discussed briefly at the end of this chapter and in more detail in Chapter 9 .