The Impact of Digital Education on Communication Skills Among Medical Students in Ibn Sina University: A Cross-Sectional Online Survey

We distributed a web-based cross-sectional questionnaire to 446 medical students at Ibn Sina University. The questionnaire was based on a comprehensive review of the literature including, in particular, the questionnaire from First Aid for the USMLE Step 1 and a communication survey developed by the University of Louisville Ombuds Office, Louisville, KY. We concluded that online education has had a negative impact on social, personal, and family communication but a positive impact on academic communication. In our comparison of Sudanese and foreign students using patient-physician scenarios, both groups scored relatively low, but the foreign students performed better across most scenarios. This finding indicates that, when faced with the challenges posed by online education, the foreign students were able to demonstrate better communication skills in these scenarios than their Sudanese counterparts. We also found that the Sudanese medical students were less accustomed to using technology in their education and could be at a disadvantage when it comes to developing effective communication skills in an online learning environment.