Development and validation of the Emotional Intimacy Scale

Although many measures have been developed to capture elements of social support, only a few include an assessment of emotional intimacy. Emotional intimacy involves a perception of closeness to another that allows sharing of personal feelings, accompanied by expectations of understanding, affirmation, and demonstrations of caring. The 5-item Emotional Intimacy Scale (EIS) was developed to assess the emotional intimacy component in one close relationship. A sample of 90 women with rheumatoid arthritis was used to assess the reliability and validity of the scale. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability for a 6-week period were .88 and .85, respectively. To assess construct validity, significant, positive correlations were obtained between the EIS and measures of social support, self-efficacy, perceived health competence, reappraisal coping behaviors, life satisfaction, and positive affect. Significant negative correlations were obtained between the EIS and perceived stress levels, helplessness, negative pain coping behaviors, pain, and fatigue. In support of criterion-related validity, the EIS predicted outcomes from an intervention program. To further assess criterion-related validity, scores on the EIS and helplessness predicted scores on two indicators of psychological well-being that measured positive affect and life satisfaction. The EIS is a brief measure of emotional intimacy with good psychometric properties.