The Added Value of Simulation Patients in Teaching and Learning Communication Skills for Allied Health Professional Students

National and international policies aim to enhance health literacy among the population, empowering individuals to make informed health decisions. This requires the implementation of efficacious communication strategies by allied health professionals. Therefore, teaching and experiential learning of students need to promote the necessary professional skills for person-centred communication. This study aims to analyse communication skills acquisition among undergraduate allied health professional students in a novel intensive communication course with Simulation Patients (SP) and ALOBA sessions. Three different intervention cohorts (IG) with an increasing longitudinal implementation of communication courses were compared to an alternative course without SP (CG). A questionnaire was used at the end of the course for the students ( n  = 315) to self-assess communication skills prior and after the training programme. The questionnaire was validated by confirmatory factor analysis, showing good model fits, validity and reliability. The first intervention group (IG1) showed a significant effect ( d  = 0.78) on Building Relationship skills (BRS). This finding is supported by the exploration of effects of IG2 ( d  = 0.69), which yielded additional small effects on Seeking and Giving Information skills (SGI; d  = 0.29); and of the pooled intervention group IG _all (BRS d  = 0.54; SGI1 d  = 0.28 and SGI6 d  = 0.38). In conclusion, training with SP and ALOBA sessions seems particularly suitable to improve building relationships skills, which are strongly related to person-centred communication. Active listening, non-verbal recognition, interacting empathic, collecting information and using question techniques as effective information gathering in a person-centred manner benefitted most from simulated training. The integration of longitudinal simulation-based communication training with ALOBA session is recommended.