An Investigation of Empathic Skills of Foster Families, Turkey Running Title: Empathic Skills of Foster Families, Turkey

Abstract

ObjectivesEmpathy brings people closer and facilitates communication in almost all the fields of daily life. Having been an important dimension of foster care, empathetic skills should be developed in a foster family. In this study, we aimed to determine the empathic level of the foster families. MethodsThis cross-sectional study on foster families was performed in Turkey. Research data were collected from 124 fosters parents. Two instruments were used in the survey: the personal information form and the Basic Empathy Scale. The volunteers were chosen by applyinganon-probability sampling method, i.e. the “snowball” method. The data were analyzed by using SPSS statistical software, Version 18.0. ResultsThe foster parents had a mean age of 48.37±9.36. Most of foster carers (89.5%) were married. 76.6% of foster families had their own biological child, among them, 29.5% had one, 54.7% had two, and 15.8% had three children. The percentage of foster families that preferred female, and male children, were 76.6%, and 23.4%, respectively. Among the children, who had been placed in foster parent households, 42.7% agedless than 3 years, 31.5% between 4-6 years, and 25.8% more than 7 years. The ratio of parents, who defined foster family concept as “social responsibility,” “protection,” “ownage,” and “charity” were 76.6%, 71.1%, 58.1%, and 45.2%, respectively. The ratio of those, who thought that to be a foster carer matureda person, was 62.9%, whereas the ratio of those, who emphasized that they became role model for their environment, was 77.4%. The subjects were asked to empathize with the relevant biological families, and that 59.7% gave first priority to “I want to be sure about my child's safety”, 29.8% to “I want to be sure that my child is in good hands”, 7.3% to “I want to see that my child is valued”. Also 56.5% of foster families pointed out that they were disturbed by the idea that one they the child mightbe sent back to his/her biological family. General Cronbach's alpha co-efficient of the instrument was found to be .76. The cognitive empathy of sub-factors was found to be .78, and the emotional empathy of the sub-factors was .62. Basic Empathy Scale average points were 71.52±9.76 in the parents. The mean cognitive empathy was 34.49±5.79, and the mean emotional empathy was 37.03±6.08.