Measuring Empathetic Care: Development and Validation of a Self-Report Scale

Area of Science:

• Healthcare research
• Psychometrics
• Social sciences

Background:

• Empathetic care, defined as supporting clients' socioemotional needs, is distinct from instrumental care (physical assistance).
• A validated measure for assessing empathetic care in paraprofessionals was previously lacking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a self-report survey measure of empathetic care.
• To differentiate empathetic care from instrumental care in healthcare settings.

Main Methods:

• Literature review, interviews, and focus groups identified three dimensions: extra-role behavior, emotional support, and relational richness.
• Item pool development followed by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses on samples of health care paraprofessionals (N=138, N=125).

Main Results:

• The 10-item, three-factor Empathetic Care Scale (ECS) was developed.
• The ECS demonstrated desirable psychometric properties, including convergent and discriminant validity.
• Acceptable test-retest reliability and no social desirability bias were confirmed in further samples.

Conclusions:

• The Empathetic Care Scale (ECS) is a brief, reliable, and valid self-report measure for assessing empathetic care.
• The ECS can be utilized in future research to examine links between empathetic care and outcomes like patient well-being and staff burnout.