Braking bad news (BBN) to patients is a frequent and stress-evoking task for many physicians. Medical students do already practice this demanding task in communication trainings with simulation patients. The intensity of their stress reaction is comparable to that in the real situation and can lead to a decrease of their BBN skills performance.Therefore, it is important to provide strategies that help medical students to effectively deal with this highly stressful communication task.

The aim of this project is to explore the effects of the strategies «stress arousal reappraisal» and «preparatory learning with worked examples» on medical students’ stress response and BBN skills perfromance. For this purpose, 200 medical students from Swiss universities will be tasked with BBN to simulation patients. BBN skills performance, cardiovascular activity, stress hormone release and the subjective stress perception of the students will be recorded.

SNF project 100019_200831

PhD candidate: Michel Bosshard (Master of Science in Psychologie)
Thesis Advisor: PD Dr. med. Christoph Berendonk, MME
Co-Referee: Prof. Dr. Achim Alfering, Institut für Psychologie, Bern

SNF project partner
IML:
PD Dr. med. Christoph Berendonk, MME (Main applicant)
Dr. phil. Felix Schmitz
Prof. Dr. phil. Sissel Guttormsen

External project partners:
PD Dr. Patrick Gomez, University Lausanne, Faculty of Biology and Medicine, Switzerland
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Urs Markus Nater, Universität Vienna, Austria

Bosshard, M., Nater, U. M., Guttormsen, S., Schmitz, F., Gomez, P., Christoph Berendonk, Ch. (2025). Stress arousal reappraisal and worked example effects on the neuroendocrine stress response during breaking bad news in medical education,
Psychoneuroendocrinology,Volume 176, 2025,107439, ISSN 0306-4530, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2025.107439

Bosshard, M., Guttormsen, S., Nater, U. M., Schmitz, F., Gomez, P., Berendonk, Ch. (2025). Improving Breaking Bad News Communication Skills Through Stress Arousal Reappraisal and Worked Examples. Medical Education 2025;1-9: https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.15658

Bosshard, M., Guttormsen, S., Nater, U. M., Schmitz, F.*, Gomez, P.*, Berendonk, Ch.* (2025). A randomized controlled trial evaluating stress arousal reappraisal and worked example effects on psychophysiological responses during breaking bad news. Sci Rep 15, 23290 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-06995-7

* Shared last authorship.

Bosshard, M., Guttormsen, S., Nater, U. M., Schmitz, F.*, Gomez, P.*, Berendonk, Ch. *
(In print). Exploring the Psychophysiological Predictors of Performance Under Stress — Insights from a Machine Learning Approach, Royal Society Open Science.

* Shared last authorship.