The Communicative Competence of Future Doctors with Different Levels of Stress Resistance

Physicians’ communicative competence is of immense importance for their professional activity. The current study presumes that future doctors’ communicative competence correlates with their stress resistance which influences their professional performance of duties. The specific aim of our research was to conduct a thorough study of the communicative competence of future doctors with different levels of stress resistance. According to the analysis of the level of their stress resistance, seventy-seven senior students of the Donetsk National Medical University of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine were divided into three groups. Further, applying a set of appropriate psychodiagnostic methods and techniques, their communicative competence was evaluated. The results have proved that the research participants with a high level of stress resistance are more communicatively competent compared to the participants with average and low-level stress resistance. Our findings suggest that future physicians’ communicative competence, as it is closely connected with their stress resistance, needs more considerable attention of authorities in medical education. So, we speculate that introducing socio-psychological training sessions both to the curriculum and to the process of current physicians' professional development will contribute to the successful performance of future doctors’ professional duties under pressure, and their interaction with colleagues, patients, and their relatives.</em

Communicative Competence as a Component of the Professional Development of Psychology Students

The paper analyzes the issue of communicative competence as an element of the professional development of students studying psychology. It is established that in order to become a professional psychologist, a person should possess a number of essential psychological skills, such as communicative competence realized in the possession of verbal and nonverbal means of communication, ability to initiate and maintain contact. Based on this, the aim of the article was to conduct an empirical study on the communicative competence features as a component of the professional development of upcoming psychologists. A set of psychodiagnostic methods was selected, which helped to study the main parameters of communicative competence, features of professional orientation and motivation of future professional activity. The obtained results were subjected to quantitative and qualitative analysis. The sample included 72 Bachelor’s degree psychology students studying at Vasyl’ Stus Donetsk National University. The research consisted of two stages. The first stage incorporated the assessment of communicative competence, based on which the sample of subjects was divided into 3 subgroups according to their level of communicative competence development. The second stage analyzed the features of professional motivation and attitude to one’s own professional development of psychology students with different levels of communicative competence development. The results demonstrate that students with a high level of communicative competence in comparison with students with medium and low levels of communicative competence in the structure of professional motivation are dominated by intrinsic motivation, which indicates that for such students their future profession itself is very important. Moreover, these students have a clear idea of their future professional activity, are more professionally oriented, which will contribute to their successful professional development.</p