Use of Linguistic Communication Strategies (Hedges and Intensifiers) in Simulated Pharmacy Education Shared Decision-Making

Overall, pharmacy students tend to hedge when making recommendations. Students who were marked highly by examiners showed differences in the number of hedges between the 2 interlocutors, whereas students who were marked as poor communicators used similar language when talking to the patient or the physicians. Study findings provide insight into links between grading and linguistic strategies used and could inform innovative applied linguistic-based communication training programs for students and examiners, which could lead to preparing graduates to utilize linguistic strategies to communicate pharmacist-led recommendations in the workplace.