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A Swedish version of the Consultation and Relational Empathy (CARE) measure
K Crosta Ahlforn1,2, E Bojner Horwitz1,2,3, W Osika1,2,4
1a Center for Social Sustainability, Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society , Karolinska Institutet , Stockholm , Sweden.
Objective:
A validated measure to gather patient feedback on physicians' empathy is not available in Swedish. The objective for this study was to examine the psychometric characteristics of a Swedish version of the Consultation and Relational Empathy (CARE) measure (widely used in English).
Design, Setting And Patients:
The CARE measure was translated into Swedish and tested on 554 unselected patients visiting physicians in two primary care clinics in northwestern Stockholm, Sweden.
Main Outcome Measures:
Adequate translation, as well as reliability and validity of the Swedish CARE measure.
Results:
The Swedish CARE measure seemed to demonstrate high acceptability and face validity when consulting a physician. The mean CARE score 41.5 (SD 8.9) over all 10 item was not significantly influenced by seasonality, age or gender. Scores were somewhat negatively distributed, but corrected item-total correlations were high (0.86-0.91) suggesting homogeneity. Internal reliability was very high (Cronbach's alpha 0.975). Factor analysis implied a one-dimensional structure with factor loadings between 0.89 and 0.93.
Conclusions:
The Swedish CARE measure appears to be psychometrically valid and reliable enough in physicians.
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