Twelve Years of the Italian Program to Enhance Relational and Communication Skills (PERCS)

This article aims to describe the Italian programme to improve relationship and communication skills (PERCS-Italy) in difficult healthcare conversations. PERCS-Italy has been offered in two versions in different hospitals in Milan since 2008. Each workshop lasts 5 hours, involves 10-15 interdisciplinary participants and is structured around the simulation and debriefing of two difficult conversations. Before and after the workshop, participants rate their preparation, communication, relational skills, confidence and anxiety on a 5-point Likert scale. Usefulness, quality and recommendation of the programme are also assessed. A total of 72 workshops were organised with 830 interdisciplinary participants. Participants reported improvements in all dimensions (p <0.001) with no differences between the two hospitals. Nurses and other professionals reported greater improvements in preparedness, communication skills and confidence compared to physicians and psychosocial specialists. The usefulness, quality and recommendation of PERCS programmes were highly rated, with no differences by discipline. PERCS-Italy proved to be adaptable to different hospital, public and private settings. After the workshop, clinicians reported improved self-reported skills in difficult conversations.