Validation de la version francophone du questionnaire d’attitudes envers les compétences communicationnelles et leur apprentissage (CSAS) chez des étudiants en médecine belges

Background: Medical students may have negative attitudes toward communication skills (CS) training, limiting its effectiveness and transfer to practice. Objectives: To translate and validate the psychometric properties of the French version of the Communication Skills Attitude Scale (CSAS) questionnaire; to examine possible correlations between our students'attitudes and certain sociodemographic and educational variables; to explore our students'negative attitudes through qualitative data. Methods: A self-administered questionnaire was offered to first-, second-, and third-year medical students in the 2018- 2019 academic year. The questionnaire contained the CSAS translated into French, sociodemographic and educational-related questions, a questionnaire exploring emotional competencies, and an open-ended question for students who reported an extreme score on CSAS item 19. Results: 262 students completed this questionnaire. Overall, the principal component analysis supports the original two-component structure of the CSAS. The test-retest showed significant correlations in favor of the fidelity of this scale. Convergent validation was observed through significant positive correlations between positive attitudes and emotional competencies. Females showed significantly higher scores of positive attitudes than males. Thematic content analysis identified different themes within the students'explanations for their scores on item 19. Conclusion: This study provides a French-language version of the CSAS that can be used for research and educational purposes with French-speaking medical students. Our results invite exploration of the fact that positive and negative attitude scores could be determined by different processes and the interest of coupling the use of this questionnaire with qualitative data collection tools.